


From Both War and Love

by congratulationsbeautiful



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst, Annabeth Chase & Piper McLean Friendship, Annabeth Chase Has ADHD, Arguing, Bisexual Annabeth Chase (Percy Jackson), Body Image, Camp Jupiter (Percy Jackson), Coffee, Coffee Shops, Comfort, Comfort Reading, Demigods, Denial of Feelings, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/F, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, First Time, Gay Rights, Getting Together, Height Differences, Hook-Up, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Late Night Conversations, Late at Night, Learning Disabilities, Lesbian Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, Lesbian Sex, Light Angst, Literal Sleeping Together, Love Confessions, Making Out, Mildly Dubious Consent, Minor Injuries, New Rome (Percy Jackson), Non-Canon Relationship, Not Beta Read, Orgasm Delay/Denial, POV Third Person, Post-Canon, Post-Coital Cuddling, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Rants, Secret Relationship, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Sharing a Bed, Sleeping Together, Slow Build, Smoking, Spooning, Swearing, Teasing, Wordcount: 30.000-50.000, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:47:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28078677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/congratulationsbeautiful/pseuds/congratulationsbeautiful
Summary: Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, and Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, daughter of Bellona, two of the most powerful and outspoken demigods, have hated each other since the day they first met. With Annabeth attending university in New Rome, their rivalry shows no signs of stopping.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano
Comments: 23
Kudos: 128





	1. Prologue

There had always been a natural rivalry between Romans and Greeks. Last summer, that tradition had been broken by the Greek demigods from Camp Half-Blood and Roman demigods from Camp Jupiter who banded together to defeat the Earth Mother, Gaea.

The rivalry between the two camps had started ever since they found out about each other’s existence. Rivals and enemies joined forces to stop the eldest of all goddesses from rising. After the war, things had generally simmered down with Greek and Roman demigods forming tight bonds and long-lasting friendships. Their collective victory had provided a beacon of hope for the two feuding sides, hinting at the possibility of a fresh, new start and deciding to let their rivalry become water under the bridge.

Although, due to the intense, burning hatred that existed between two of the most powerful demigods on either side, a permanent resolution was not implemented.

Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, and Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, daughter of Bellona, were directly responsible for preventing a settlement between their camps. The two girls acted as representatives for all the demigods on their respective sides, declaring that after the war had been won, there would be no need to continue their allyship.

The girls were opposing enemies from the start. Their rivalry hadn’t spontaneously sparked all on its own. The pieces had all been in place to automatically create a natural opposition between the two from the first instant that they met each other.

Reyna was a praetor at Camp Jupiter, which also made her a strong role model for many demigods. She demanded respect and attention from the moment she walked into a room. Everyone around her was very cautious not to end up on her bad side.

Annabeth had gotten on her bad side on multiple occasions, but she was just as tough as Reyna. If anyone could handle being on the receiving end of Reyna’s brute force, it would be someone who could reciprocate with her own forceful authority, someone like Annabeth.

Their rivalry had begun right from the very beginning when they first met. Annabeth was 16, and Reyna was 15, but only a few months younger. Annabeth’s first impression of Reyna was completely different from her thoughts about her now.

Just by looking at her, Annabeth believed that she and Reyna would have a lot in common. Reyna had been a praetor at only 15. Annabeth could see it by looking in her eyes that she had had a rough childhood and had been forced to grow up too fast, something most demigods, including herself, experienced and had to get accustomed to.

Annabeth had been anticipating their initial conversation after Jason Grace, a Roman demigod, had explained to Annabeth that the two of them would be representatives and mediators between the two camps. If anyone could settle the conflict between the Greeks and Romans, it would be those two.

That didn’t turn out to be the case at all. Their first ever interaction had been strenuous at best. When they had attempted to get to know one another better, things started to take a turn for the worse.

It had been just the two of them in the Garden of Bacchus, Reyna’s favourite place to go to in New Rome. Annabeth had felt honoured that Reyna would take her to such an intimate, special location after their first meeting. She had even bought her a hot chocolate, a small gesture that spoke volumes.

When the demigods had been left alone to discuss war and battle strategies, they discovered that they had more opposing ideals than things in common. Even though Annabeth and Reyna were both incredibly talented and skilled demigods, neither of them had anticipated that there would be a stark contrast between their ideals. It seemed inevitable that putting two incredibly smart and capable demigods in a room together would result in both of them wanting to outshine the other with their talent and skill.

Every next interaction that they had had from that moment on had been filled with witty remarks and dirty looks. Their other demigod friends who had unfortunately been caught in their crossfire attempted to convince the girls to make peace since some of them were mutual friends and hated to pick sides, but to no avail.

Being a Greek demigod, Annabeth didn’t have an official ranking title or position the way certain Roman demigods did. On an extended list, that was one of the many things that Annabeth hated about Reyna, the way that she thought she was so much better than Annabeth because she followed rules and traditions from thousands of years ago, while Reyna and other Roman demigods simultaneously looked down on the modernity that the Greeks had adopted at Camp Half-Blood.

With that being said, for all intents and purposes, Annabeth still held her own leadership position at Camp Half-Blood. After all, she’d spent more than half of her life at camp. She was the head counsellor of the Athena cabin. She was respected by many of her peers and practically everyone she ever met. Nobody doubted that Annabeth could run Camp Half-Blood year round all by herself if she ever chose to do so.

The parallels between the two girls were easy to see. Reyna and Annabeth had quickly and easily realized the similarities themselves, even without their friends constantly pointing them out. Rather than choosing to see their similarities as strengths, the situation took a turn for the worse when they started to realize that being compared to one another became more and more tedious and irritating over time.

For that reason, the two girls saw it in themselves to always compete with one another to show off their own strengths in uniqueness. A natural, instinctual rivalry forced the girls to always be attempting to outdo each other.

To make a long story short, Annabeth and Reyna had a history, a long complicated messy history that had become a tangled web muddled with hatred for one another. Their history was so extensive and massive that the girls themselves had trouble recounting every detail of their relationship.

In the present, very little had changed between them. As individuals, they’d grown and matured into their own versions of brilliant young women and yet their childish rivalry showed no signs of stopping.

Annabeth and Reyna rarely ever saw each other, given the distance between their camps and how far away they lived from each other. Thankfully this usually prevented any outbursts or sparking conflict. However, when they were apart, they still thought of the other.

Whenever Reyna would notice a pair of eyes the colour of storm clouds, she was reminded of the daughter of Athena, and every time Annabeth saw a camper wearing their hair in a braid over their shoulder, she would also see the praetor of Camp Jupiter. Small details and features like that made their competitive relationship the muddled, messy, crazy mess that it was.


	2. Part One

The last days of August were dwindling away in time for the start of the fall semester at New Rome University. Annabeth Chase had turned 18 a month prior and now she was ready to move on to a new chapter in her life. She had arrived on campus a week before the start of classes to find her way around New Rome. She appeared to be very eager to start the new school year—some of the older students she’d spoken to had mocked her decision—but she couldn’t wait to start learning, living up nicely to the reputation of being a child of Athena. She was, in all honesty, excited to finally be going to college, something she’d looked forward to for a good part of her life.

Annabeth found herself strolling through the open plaza of New Rome which resembled an open-air market with free standing columns, fountains, and statues.

The buildings were made of white marble with red-tiled roofs, including the townhouses and shops. Some of the buildings were built with domes and columned porticoes, like national monuments. Others looked like palaces, with golden doors and large gardens.

She stood in front of the Coliseum, the five-story-tall building that gleamed in the sun, providing housing and education for demigods and their families attending New Rome University.

It felt exhilarating, being in a new environment for the first time. Annabeth was on her own now, but not in a melancholic sense. Spending time alone with her thoughts was comforting. She was enjoying herself along with the warm California sunshine in the afternoon and the architecturally impressive buildings all around her. She felt elated as she admired and enjoyed the views, unable to prevent the small smile forming on her lips. She couldn’t wait to begin studying architecture, a subject that she’d been passionate about for as long as she could remember. She felt blessed to be where she was. It seemed that after all the trouble that the gods had put her through over the years, they decided that Annabeth Chase should finally be able to enjoy her life for once. She’d imagined that she’d end up here eventually, but part of her didn’t believe that it would be true. Most demigods weren’t as fortunate as she was to survive past a young age. At least, Greek demigods did. The majority of the citizens of New Rome were middle-aged demigods who had survived long enough to start their own families.

Annabeth had survived and endured more hardship in her childhood and adolescence than most people did in a lifetime. It made her into the brilliant, resilient person she was today, but she was also ready to put everything in the past behind her, the gods, the monsters, the quests, all of it, and take advantage of having a fresh start.

The feelings of new beginnings were roaming around in the air. Promising events were guaranteed to occur, but that didn’t mean they were going to be positive or favourable.

Annabeth’s feelings of bliss were cut short in an instant. Maybe the gods hadn’t decided to be merciful after all.

In the distance, on the other side of the plaza, her eyes fell upon Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano.

In some small part in the back of her mind, Annabeth knew that she would run into the daughter of Bellona sooner or later while she was living in New Rome. Camp Jupiter was only a leisurely stroll away, so it wasn’t completely surprising to run into her. She just hadn’t expected it to happen so suddenly, and on her first day at that, which completely ruined the good mood and the blissful state she had been in earlier. In the past, whenever the girls crossed paths, it was usually for the reason that they had mutual friends who ended up bringing them together by chance. Every unpleasant circumstance between the two could be easily summed up by saying wrong place, wrong time. 

Annabeth watched Reyna as she spoke confidently and firmly to who she assumed was a fellow Roman demigod from Camp Jupiter, judging based on their purple attire. It appeared to be a simple conversation, with Reyna’s arms relaxing at her sides, rather than gripping her weapons or her sword which usually hung from her side attached to a belt. It seemed to be a casual discussion about nothing in particular, but the fact that they were standing in a corner between two buildings, underneath a large roof, with shade that casted shadows on their faces didn’t help to paint a pretty picture in Annabeth’s mind about the nature of their conversation. Annabeth felt her heart begin to beat faster while she took slow, deep breaths to fight her nervous, anxious instincts. She would not let herself be intimidated by simply staring at the praetor of Camp Jupiter.

Only a second too late did Annabeth realize that she had been staring for too long. Her window of opportunity to turn around, swiftly walk away, and pretend that she hadn’t come across her enemy had vanished. She should’ve known better than to stare while standing frozen in place, considering that her rival was a skilled war strategist and the daughter of a war goddess. Reyna’s senses and reflexes were sharper than a knife. Even from a distance, she had been able to sense the penetrating gaze of Annabeth’s storm-grey eyes.

Annabeth watched, stunned, as Reyna slowly turned her head, sensing with caution, as if she were preparing to face a deadly, violent foe, which only added more to the theatrics of the situation. Reyna had established eye contact with Annabeth, locking her own eyes onto hers. She slowly rotated her body, beginning with her shoulders, followed by her waist, eventually leading to her full body. She planted herself firmly on the cobblestone beneath her feet. She didn’t waver or falter in the slightest. Her eyes narrowed slightly enough that if someone hadn’t been paying as close attention as Annabeth had been, they would miss it. Reyna tilted her chin upward, which made Annabeth believe that she was communicating that she could look down on her, both literally and metaphorically.

The two girls now had a crucial decision to make: approach or avoid. Using her fight-or-flight response, Annabeth knew it was too late to choose flight. She would be inadvertently choosing to portray herself as a coward. Rather, she decided to take a no-holds-barred approach to the situation.

Annabeth watched Reyna mouth something of a farewell to the companion she had been standing with. Then, Annabeth watched as Reyna walked in stride over to her. She was thankful that they had crossed paths in the middle of the plaza. New Rome was safe ground, meant to be a peaceful place for demigods and legacies. No weapons were allowed. If the two girls were left to their own devices, no one could predict the types of combatting and violence that could ensue between the two of them.

As Reyna inched closer, shrinking the distance between them, Annabeth could feel the tension between them grow at the same time. She felt her body tense up and get tighter with every step that Reyna took.

Annabeth had been in plenty of tense situations before, too many to count, but this was another type of tension that made her feel extremely unsettled and made every inch of her skin crawl. Her ears were ringing. Her chest and upper body flushed with warmth. She couldn’t catch her breath. She tried her best to calm her racing heart rate. 

_It’s just Reyna_ , she told herself. _There’s no real danger_.

Her body didn’t cooperate or follow her words, making her feel ashamed of the physical reactions she was showing towards someone who she claimed to hate so deeply.

It had been about a year since she’d actually seen Reyna in person, which made sense given that the two enemies avoided seeing each other as much as possible. In that time, Annabeth’s perceptions of the praetor had become distorted. Running into Reyna unexpectedly felt like a rug had been pulled out from under her feet.

Reyna looked older than Annabeth remembered. She was dressed in her standard battle attire. The golden armour on her shoulders and chest gleamed in the sunlight against her brown skin. Anyone else who sported the same look probably couldn’t make it look as good as Reyna did. It would look clunky, heavy, and disarranged, but it suited her. The armour was riddled with scratches and rust marks, as if anyone would have trouble believing that this girl had been in more than a few fights, as if it wasn’t obvious based on her stern expression alone. Even with her purple Camp Jupiter t-shirt and washed out blue jeans, she didn’t look like an average teenager at all.

Reyna’s raven black hair was tied tightly in a braid that went over her left shoulder, the same hairstyle that Annabeth always saw the daughter of Bellona wear. It was such a strong symbol for her that Annabeth was starting to believe that it was the only hairstyle that Reyna knew how to create. It was an odd choice for a warrior. Most combatants who had long hair usually wore it back in a tight ponytail. That would’ve fit her personality more accurately, Annabeth thought, before she snapped herself out of her thoughts, wondering why she was thinking about something as trivial as Reyna’s hair.

Annabeth had been so distracted that she hadn’t said anything to her rival who was standing impatiently in front of her. She blinked a few times, centering herself back to reality. She hadn’t been paying attention to Reyna who was sizing her up in silence.

“Fancy seeing you here, Chase,” Reyna began. “To what do I owe the displeasure?”

Reyna’s regular use of her last name as a mocking nickname was something that always irked Annabeth. She felt as if Reyna were trying her hardest to appear tough and intimidating, but it only served in making Annabeth feel uncomfortable.

Reyna took a few small steps forward, now standing inches away from Annabeth, making her painfully aware of the height difference between them. Annabeth was taller than average, but Reyna was taller than her. Even though it was out of their control, Reyna being the taller of the two made Annabeth feel like Reyna was beating her at a useless competition. Annabeth couldn’t stop herself from fixating on it every time they went toe to toe, even if it was only a difference of two inches. It left her reeling. She tried not to let it get to her, but she felt small and weak talking to Reyna.

Part of the reason why many people got a scared first impression of Reyna was because she was nearly six feet tall. She had this whole intimidating demeanor all elaborately planned. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she knew that it made Annabeth uncomfortable. She was a war strategist and a skilled one at that. She knew how to level the playing field towards her own advantages and strengths, even if it was for something as petty as an argument.

Annabeth took a deep breath, tilting her chin up slightly to meet Reyna’s eyes, finding her own power and leverage in the technique of intimidation.

“I’m starting college,” Annabeth said forwardly, remembering to answer Reyna’s question from before.

“Oh, right,” Reyna said. She extended the length of her vowels as she spoke. “Praetor Zhang gave you permission to study here after your service in the war with Gaea. That was nice of him.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice like venom. She spoke softly, which made her sound more intimidating, like she was carefully selecting her words and launching them like daggers.

“Yeah, real nice of him,” Annabeth agreed, treading lightly around the conversation, wanting to get a read on Reyna’s behaviour and what direction they were heading in. “I’m allowed to study here because I helped save the world. Retrieved the Athena Parthenos, first child of Athena ever to do so by the way, in case you forgot.”

“Oh, well, let’s not forget that I also helped stop that war,” Reyna repeated. “ _I_ carried that giant statue of yours across the Atlantic, just in case you’d forgotten. You’re not special.”

Annabeth gritted her teeth, as she paused while trying to think of a witty and devastating response, silently cursing at her mother in that moment when her goddess-given intelligence failed her. Being Wisdom’s daughter was more infuriating than helpful.

“But just so you know,” Reyna continued. “I could get you kicked out. Might want to be on your best behaviour around me.”

“Yeah, right. I’m not scared of you, Arellano.” Annabeth instantly regretted using her last name. It didn’t sound as organic or witty as she thought it would in the same way that Reyna used it, making her feel frustratingly inferior.

“Just a friendly piece of advice, try not to get on my bad side while you’re here,” Reyna suggested.

“I think we both know it’s a little too late for that,” Annabeth asserted. Reyna casually shrugged her shoulders in response, silently agreeing but never admitting out loud that Annabeth was right. “Maybe if you weren’t extremely irritating, it would be easier not to hate you.”

“Ouch,” Reyna expressed, putting a fake hand of shock on her chest. “I see how it is. Nothing’s going to change between us.”

“Well, you’re still just as obnoxious and bracious as you always were, so clearly not,” Annabeth stated.

“Hey, watch it, Chase,” she snapped. “Didn’t I just tell you that I can end your academic career? I doubt that the council would fight against the removal of a Greek from their property.”

Annabeth had asserted herself strongly, and it had felt good to get out some quips against her rival, but Reyna did raise a good point. The praetor of Camp Jupiter had more power than Annabeth realized. She’d said enough.

“Fine then. Can we agree for you to not get in my way, and I won’t get in yours,” Annabeth suggested. “We don’t have to see each other at all, and we can put this unpleasant situation behind us.”

Reyna made a big show of scoffing and rolling her eyes before responding which did not falter or impress Annabeth.

“Easier said than done. I can’t just pack up an extended, gruesome rivalry and act like everything’s fine,” Reyna explained.

“Then what’s your problem?” Annabeth yelled. She let out a long, deep sigh, composing herself before continuing. “Look, we’re unfortunately going to have to be seeing each other from time to time while I’m here. I don’t fucking like it either, but that’s the way things are.”

“You could always go back to New York,” Reyna offered, “then we wouldn’t have to see each other at all.”

Annabeth groaned loudly and placed two fingers on her right temple, displaying her frustration. She couldn’t tell by Reyna’s casual tone of voice if she had in fact been joking or not. Knowing Reyna, it had probably been a serious suggestion on her part. She’d probably be willing to do anything to get rid of Annabeth.

“Do you always have to make everything so difficult?” Annabeth groaned, her tone laced with exasperation.

“No,” Reyna said simply, casually shrugging her shoulders. “Making _your_ life more difficult on the other hand, that’s a pleasure.”

Annabeth disapprovingly shook her head in defeat. She had extended her hand in an attempt to somewhat repair and salvage what remaining dignity or professionalism they could’ve had between them. Now that they were both adults, she had hoped that they could’ve patched things up between them and get a fresh start since all the other things in her life were changing. Instead, Annabeth was reminded of just how much Reyna still annoyed her. For a praetor, she sure had tendencies to be childish.

“Whatever,” Annabeth said.

She turned around and began walking away, selecting that as the best decision she could make for herself, offering no explanation to someone who wanted to aggravate her by going around in pointless circles all day.

Annabeth took a few steps forward, creating distance between the two of them. She had been shocked that Reyna hadn’t protested her departure or even shouted something obscene at her that Annabeth would be very mature about and ignore.

As if right on cue, Reyna shouted at her to stop. Annabeth had repeated this cycle so many times that she was starting to feel like an oracle.

“So while you’re here, you’re not going to be at your camp anymore?” Reyna inquired.

Annabeth turned around, making a big show of glaring and scowling at Reyna.

“Obviously.” Annabeth rolled her eyes, keeping her responses short to not start another gruesome conversation with the Roman demigod.

“So, am I correct in assuming that you’re no longer in charge of things over there?” Reyna continued.

“I thought you were supposed to be smart,” Annabeth taunted. “Why do I have to explain this to you?”

Reyna chuckled maliciously, a glint of mischief in her eyes. “I just want to make sure I’m understanding this correctly. You no longer hold any position of power, meaning that I’m more powerful than you.” Annabeth’s jaw dropped open at the bluntness of Reyna’s statement. She quickly recomposed herself, not wanting to show just how shocked she had been. “Yeah, I thought so. The one reason why everyone always compared us and said we were so similar was because you were always in charge of things over there. But I guess not anymore.”

It seemed like a trivial thing to brag about, but Reyna’s assertion meant a lot to Annabeth. Aside from the fact that Camp Half-Blood was the only place on Earth where she felt at home, the leadership role that she played at camp was a core part of her identity.

She hadn’t truly realized how much she had given up by being away from New York and Long Island for the majority of the year, something she hadn’t done since she was six years old, before she even knew she was a demigod. She hadn’t given everything up entirely, but as much as she hated to admit it, Reyna was right.

“Shut up.” Annabeth snapped back with the best and strongest response she could think of at that moment. “Just because I’m not at camp, doesn’t make you any better than me. I’m here so I could go to college and get an education.”

“Mhmm,” Reyna nodded along mockingly, when she clearly had no real interest or belief in anything that Annabeth was saying. She crossed her arms over her chest casually. She had a certain look of ease and comfort on her face, showing that she was very much enjoying Annabeth’s frustration. “And tell me why, New Rome University, out of all of the schools in the country, you chose the one that’s ten minutes away from where I live. If I didn’t know any better, Chase, I’d say that you like me.”

“In your dreams,” Annabeth countered. “New Rome is the only college that’s safe for demigods, you know that. That’s the only reason why I’m here. Don’t flatter yourself.”

Reyna gave a playful shrug in response to Annabeth’s arguments, indicating that she did not believe a single word. “If you say so. In any case, if you’re going to be living in New Rome, you’re going to be under my rules and my orders.”

A mix of irritation and fury swirled in Annabeth’s mind. Reyna’s implication that she was so worthy that Annabeth would make choices and live her life to revolve around her was completely infuriating. Annabeth knew that Reyna only said what she said to get under her skin, but it still didn’t help with the fact that she could feel her face turning red with anger.

Annabeth abruptly ended their conversation by muttering a Greek curse, certain that Reyna would not understand it and marched back to her dorm room. Standing outside the door, she fumbled with the key before she could get the door unlocked, adding the cherry on top of what was one of the most aggravating situations of her life to date.

For the remainder of the day, she replayed the events of her argument with Reyna in her mind. She cursed herself at better comebacks she could’ve thought of at the time that would’ve been smart and witty to say.

In an attempt to get her mind off of everything that had happened, she started unpacking her remaining luggage. Rearranging her items and belongings in her new living space for the next few months helped her calm down and soothe the nerves that Reyna had gotten on.

She had requested to have a single room, one that was tiny and nearly empty, similar to the room she had had on the Argo 2 last summer. Living in such a small, bleak space was meant to help Annabeth concentrate and focus on her school work when she needed it and to help keep her ADHD mind at bay.

No matter the layout of the room, she couldn’t get Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano out of her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so happy i finally got to upload this, hope you all enjoyed it so far


	3. Part Two

Living in California took some getting used to. Having lived in New York nearly her entire life, Annabeth Chase had come to expect drastic temperature drops to occur around autumn. After a month of classes at New Rome University had gone by, every day was still surprisingly as sunny and warm as it had ever been.

A trait that came with being the daughter of the goddess of strategic war was being able to adapt and overcome difficult situations, so Annabeth predictably made the most of the good outdoor weather that she had been granted.

Something that surprised many people about Annabeth was that she genuinely enjoyed working out and exercising. She relished in all the benefits that came with regular exercise: her mood improved, she could concentrate better on school work, and keeping her general health in good condition. She usually got in a lot of workouts from her many encounters with monsters, but in the safe haven of New Rome, she had to find her own time during the day to exercise.

Annabeth habitually returned to her dorm room after a long day of back-to-back classes, immediately throwing her school bag on her bed upon entering. She opened her wardrobe and reached for her readily available workout clothes. She put on a white sports bra that had black lining around the seams with the Nike logo on the front, which she hadn’t bought intentionally in favour of any goddess. She pulled up her black Adidas shorts that had the signature three stripes running down the sides of either leg.

She rummaged through her backpack to retrieve her phone, putting the attached headphones in her ears before rushing out the door.

Another bewildering experience that Annabeth had had while living in California was learning that she was able to use technology freely. The magical barrier that protected New Rome from monstrous interference was so strong that using technology within the city limits was possible without attracting attention from any unwanted enemies.

Annabeth had been skeptical about it at first, but after she saw so many other demigods using their technology as if they were regular mortals, she’d gotten into the habit of doing it too.

Annabeth exited her residence building and walked towards the perimeter of the main plaza before she broke into a brisk jog. Running, she’d discovered, was the best form of exercise that she could do for herself since it didn’t require any equipment, and she could do it while taking advantage of the Californian weather.

Her regular path extended around the perimeter of the city, providing the longest distance and stretching out as much time as possible for her to get in an efficient workout.

She also seldom saw anyone on her usual runs, meaning she was able to truly free herself of anything that was weighing her down and focus on herself and her well-being.

When Annabeth had first selected her path, she hadn’t known that she would get the added benefit of being able to sightsee. While she jogged, she viewed the nature sights outside San Francisco at the same time. The beautiful sights allowed her mind to wander freely, causing her brain to operate on autopilot, having taken this route many times before.

In many cases, when Annabeth didn’t want to return to the real world, she would find bright green patches of soft grass to lie down in, rewarding herself with relaxation after a good run. She would lay in the open fields, soaking up the warm sunlight that was peaceful enough to almost put her to sleep. The music coming from her earbuds added to the serenity that she was experiencing. Being alone, doing something she loved, and taking time for herself were rare occurrences for her.

Nearing the end of her run, Annabeth started sprinting for a few minutes, wanting to finish on a high note. She focused intensely on her body and how it was working, listening to the signals it gave her as she burned up more and more energy. Slowly making her way back to the plaza, her residence building was visible in the distance. She exhaled vigorous puffs of air, regulating her breathing. A few buildings were situated on the edge of the plaza, where Annabeth approached the corner side of one of the buildings. Her full attention was on herself, not noticing anything or anyone in her path as she turned around the final corner which caused her to crash into a certain Roman demigod.

The impact sent the both of them startling backwards. Annabeth hit the ground with a smack, using her forearms to break her fall which took in most of the impact, landing flat on her ass. Both of her earbuds flew out. They dangled in front of her phone which had tilted sideways and was almost falling out from where she had kept it in between her stomach and the waistband of her shorts. Pain ran through every nerve of her body.

Annabeth clenched down on her teeth, trying to force down the burning sensations that were running through her body. She squinted her eyes, wincing from the pain. The blurry, fuzzy image that her eyes produced showed Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano in a similar disheveled state on the ground in front of her.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” Reyna chuckled lightly, rubbing her forehead.

Annabeth had been lucky enough not to have run into Bellona’s daughter during the first month that she’d been in New Rome, aside from their dispute last month on her first day here. Now that this encounter had quite literally started off with a bang, she knew that more unpleasantness was inevitably on the way.

“Believe me,” Annabeth began, pushing herself off the ground, “I’d love nothing more than to not physically run into you.”

“What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere anyway?” she inquired, brushing off the dirt on her clothes. “People usually come out here to get murdered.”

“That can be arranged,” Annabeth suggested, glaring at Reyna to make up for the moderate level of politeness that she was about to show. “I’m out here for a run. Other people usually don’t come here, so it’s a good space for me to be able to think and clearly my head. I’d never considered it to be a murder spot, until now.”

“Oh, going for a run. That’s nice. Should’ve been obvious from your outfit,” Reyna noted.

“Yeah, you would think. What brings you to the murder spot then?” she questioned.

“Pretty much the same as you. The peace and quiet help me think. I come out here when I need to be alone. I always kind of considered it to be my secret place,” Reyna explained.

“Well, it’s not so secret anymore,” Annabeth scoffed.

Annabeth stared at her rival, predictably expecting another annoying, witty comment to come out of her mouth, but she was silent. That was odd.

She met Reyna’s eyes, noticing that her attention was elsewhere. Given her height, Reyna shouldn’t have had trouble making eye contact, yet Annabeth had the unsettling feeling as though Reyna were staring at her chest and the rest of her exposed upper body.

She couldn’t be sure. After the fall, Annabeth’s bra had shifted, causing it to sit crookedly on her body and show more cleavage than Annabeth was comfortable with.

Annabeth didn’t have the confidence to believe that Reyna had been checking her out, so to speak. Knowing the nature of their relationship, the way that Reyna’s eyes were glued to Annabeth’s body was meant to signal more judgment than admiration. 

After Annabeth went through puberty, she began naturally gaining weight. Her body had developed more curves over the years, something that continued to make her feel insecure, no matter how much positive self-talk she did. She tried her best to be as confident as she could about it all, but it definitely wasn’t easy, especially now with her midriff exposed and her boobs threatening to pop out of her bra.

The whole issue wouldn’t have been such a big deal if Annabeth hadn’t had the rotten luck of running into her least favourite demigod. She had intentionally put on a sports bra in the first place. Everything would have been fine if she could’ve just quickly moved on afterwards, but of course, Reyna loved to start an argument and make everything more complicated. If Annabeth had bumped into any other person, she never would have ended up in a situation like this since she only had a long, complicated history with Reyna.

Annabeth fiddled with her bra, yanking herself out of her own mind. She readjusted her bra to a more suitable position and crossed her arms over the front of her body, encasing both her chest and stomach as much as she could.

Reyna hadn’t said a word the entire time while Annabeth had been thinking, which only made her wonder even more about what was going on inside the praetor’s mind. Annabeth waved a hand in front of Reyna’s face, trying her best to be hostile towards the far-off look on Reyna’s face.

“Are you gonna stand there all day, or can I get back to my business?” she snapped.

Reyna stepped aside. ”You could’ve asked more nicely.”

“Me? Be nice to you? Who do you think you’re talking to?” she asked.

“You know, Chase, it’s okay to let loose every once in a while,” Reyna suggested.

“Yeah, whatever.” Annabeth rolled her eyes, putting her earbuds in.

“You don’t have to act so tough all the time. I can see through the whole act you’ve got going on,” Reyna chuckled lightly, amused by Annabeth’s artificial, stone-cold attitude.

Annabeth’s headphones blasted with music. Reyna could hear the muffled beats as well.

“I can’t hear you,” Annabeth teased.

She pushed past the Roman demigod, resuming her routine back towards her residence building.

Being able to focus on finishing her workout and her music, Annabeth avoided all other external distractions. She jogged briskly, forcing herself to get lost in herself and her music, yet the issues still tugged in the back of her mind.

She tried to unravel the mystery of why Reyna had been staring at her body, but she couldn’t come up with a single plausible reason. Normally, she would explain it based upon Reyna’s hatred for her, but this time a different look had been in her eyes. Annabeth knew that something was off. She couldn’t understand why Reyna would be staring at her so intently, if not to judge her.

Reyna couldn’t have been jealous when her own body was envious to say the least. She embodied all the qualities of being lean and slender with broad shoulders and a bold stature to top it all off. Reyna could have very well been sculpted by the gods themselves for all Annabeth knew.

After a certain point, Annabeth gave up on trying to distract herself and let her brain run haywire for the rest of the day, incapable of thinking about anything else. She’d reached her dorm room after her run, immediately flopping on her bed. For the first time after a run, she felt more defeated and sluggish now than she had at the start. She could feel her brain working at an alarming rate in an attempt to try and make sense of everything that had happened during her encounter with Reyna, effectively ruining the remainder of her day.

Something about Reyna was so perfect that Annabeth couldn’t put it into words. Describing her rival that way felt awful, but Annabeth had a feeling inside of her that she didn’t know how else to articulate. The best word that she could come up with was jealousy.

Seeing how well put together Reyna always was, how she could command a legion, how numerous people followed her orders without any hesitation, Annabeth felt lesser in comparison. Who was she to argue with and go against a powerful leader like Reyna?

As much as she hated to admit it, Reyna’s words had stuck with her. Reyna was a skilled combatant who also could clearly still relax and even be a little bit friendly when she wanted to. Annabeth didn’t know how Reyna did it all. She wished that she could lighten up more often, but she just wasn’t that kind of person. Annabeth had had to develop a hard personality from a young age when a different monster was always trying to kill her every week. The countless quests she’d gone on in her life weren’t part of the formula for creating a mild-mannered girl.

Annabeth constantly reassured herself that she was just as good in her own way. She always hated getting compared to Reyna because she felt like she needed to live up to the high expectations that were set by the girl who she was constantly being compared to by everyone around her. Annabeth felt as if had to be just as good as Reyna was, otherwise she wouldn’t be good enough.

Against her own wishes, she was starting to realize that maybe her and Reyna really were two sides of the same coin.

* * *

Dealing with college classes was one of the hardest things that Annabeth ever had to do. Trying to stay on top of everything and not fall behind was harder than all of the monsters she’d had to fight combined.

Maybe she was exaggerating just a bit, but it didn’t help lighten the loads of work she had to complete.

Midterm season was strolling in, meaning half of the semester had already gone by in a flash. Where it had gone exactly, Annabeth didn’t know, but she did know that now she had to buckle down, catch up on work, and perform well on her exams.

She routinely trudged back to her dorm room after yet another excruciating day of being given more work to complete for all her classes.

While students like Annabeth were suffering during this period of the school year, on a totally opposite side of the spectrum were students who waited all year to be able to celebrate Halloween during the month of October.

Annabeth had been so preoccupied with school that she hadn’t even realized that Halloween was only a few weeks away. She’d gotten her wake-up call once she saw all of the decorations that were lining the hallways and the doors of other residents.

As she reached the end of the long hallway where her room was located, she slung her heavy backpack off of her shoulders and stretched briefly, before fishing her key card out of one of the deep pockets of her bag.

Before she could unlock the door, something on the front of it caught her eye: a small card right at her eye level. Annabeth didn’t notice it at first, compared to all of the other surrounding decorations.

She grabbed the rectangular piece of paper, prying it off her door from where it was stuck with a single piece of tape on the top. She held the little Halloween card in her hand. The colour was pitch black and had white writing on it.

_Happy spooky season, Chase. Better watch your back. You could get both tricked and treated. Choose wisely._

When she flipped it over, a picture of a cartoon ghost was positioned next to text that read ‘Happy Halloween’. She realized that the card was meant to be like a valentine, the kind you could buy in a pack from Dollar Tree and would be exchanged between kids in elementary school.

Annabeth immediately knew that this idea of a prank was Reyna’s doing. The praetor of Camp Jupiter was the only person who ever referred to her as ‘Chase’. Staring at the cartoon ghost, she wondered how Reyna even knew which room was Annabeth’s.

She shuddered at the sudden thought she’d had: Reyna knew exactly where she lived. If Reyna knew where Annabeth lived, then she wouldn’t be safe from her anywhere else on campus or in New Rome.

Annabeth hadn’t seen Reyna in a couple of weeks since the day that they had literally run into each other. From that day on, Annabeth had had to find a different running route, fearing another situation where she would end up feeling insecure about her body in front of someone who she despised.

Rearranging her life to avoid the praetor had been tedious, sure, but it was worth it if it meant that she could go about her day living her life in peace.

She didn’t know how Reyna had discovered her address, maybe she had access to the information since she was a praetor. Annabeth had no idea the extent to which Reyna could use and abuse the amount of power that she had.

Instead of continuing to stand around idly in the hallway, staring at a cartoon ghost, thinking about how childish her rival was, she unlocked the door to her room.

Just when Annabeth thought that Reyna couldn’t go any lower, she had proved her wrong.

Figuring out where someone lives and leaving them a cryptid, threatening note was the kind of thing that only Reyna would do, for no reason other than to piss off Annabeth.

Inside her room, Annabeth reached underneath the table where she kept a small trash can and threw away the piece of paper.

A lot of things that Reyna did got underneath Annabeth’s skin, but she wasn’t going to let something as stupid, petty, and uncreative as this be one of them. She dismissed it, knowing that this game would probably end once the seasonal holiday passed.

Annabeth plopped herself on the chair in front of the desk in her once pristine room that had since evolved into piles of dirty clothes, food crumbs, and scattered school supplies, a typical scene for most college students. Annabeth told herself that it was time to put away all thoughts about Reyna and finally get to studying.

* * *

Just because the Halloween season was over, didn’t mean that Reyna’s work was done. She was committed to the grand annoyance of a messaging service that she had started.

Over the course of several weeks, Annabeth Chase continued to receive sticky notes and note cards placed on her door from her least favourite demigod.

After Halloween, Reyna had upgraded to using pink and other pastel-coloured notes that had frilly borders and were curved around the edges. They looked like notes that someone would use to leave cute messages for their partner in the morning, except that Reyna’s note had the most condescending and rude messages written on them, adding layers upon layers of irony and unsettling weirdness to the whole situation.

_Haven’t seen you around in a while. I know you like to run. Hoping I’ll run into you soon, or I’ll have to come see you myself._

Annabeth had considered retaliating, but she ultimately decided it was better not to waste her energy on something as stupid and degrading as this. She could be doing a hundred other more productive things with her time, none of which included finding out where Reyna lived just so she could leave her a few notes. She doubted that she’d even be allowed to freely and inconspicuously enter Camp Jupiter in the first place, under all the protection they had and possibly some certain law that they had in place against Greek demigods.

Ultimately, she knew that the best way to deal with Reyna games was to ignore them, while hoping and praying to the gods of Olympus that Reyna would get the message until she inevitably stopped and not give her the satisfaction she wanted.

Until that happened, Annabeth had to silently and painfully receive notes, upon notes, upon notes.

_You avoiding me? My patience and your time are running low. Can’t hide forever, Chase._

Annabeth didn’t know how Reyna did it, but she somehow managed to very clearly communicate her snarky tone through pieces of paper.

Receiving notes from Reyna had become so regular and repetitive that Annabeth didn’t even read half of them anymore. Annabeth would return to her room after class, during which time a note would have magically appeared on her door. She would tear it off, enter her room, and throw it in the garbage without a second thought.

She wasn’t going to fight back, no matter how badly she wanted to give Reyna a taste of her own medicine. Restricting herself was getting increasingly harder with every note that was stuck on her door. Her anger and irritation was starting to boil over to the point where she couldn’t keep it bottled up inside of her anymore.

The best method of therapy that she could think of was talking therapy, knowing exactly who to reach out to and would be willing to listen.

The next day, she waited until she was done with her classes before dialing a phone number while walking back to her residence building. The phone beeped a few times before she heard a voice answer on the other line.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Piper. How’s it going?”

“Oh hey.” Annabeth heard some things being shuffled around on the other line before Piper continued. “Things are good. What about you?”

“I’m good. I just wanted to call and see how you’re doing. Been a while,” she mentioned.

She had primarily called to complain about Reyna but she also cared about her friend and wanted to check in on her and what she was up to.

“Yeah it has. Nice hearing from you. How’s college? Working hard, learning new things?” Piper wondered.

“Oh yeah, you know it,” Annabeth exaggerated, earning a laugh out of both her and Piper. “For real though, it’s been tough, but I’m really glad I’m here. Studying architecture is the best.”

“Nerd,” Piper snorted, making both of them laugh again.

The girls hadn’t talked in months, but it felt like no time had passed at all between them. Annabeth knew that Piper was currently living on the reserve with her dad in Oklahoma, meaning that there weren’t many monsters out there to begin with. Piper was living in her own version of a safe haven, like New Rome. She had already known that their communication line was safe for the both of them when she had called.

“What’s it like in New Rome? Is it the same as the last time I was there?” Piper inquired.

“Yeah, it’s still really nice. The parks, the cafes, I love it here. Even if there is a certain someone who gets under my skin.” Her voice trailed off, hoping that Piper would understand who she was referring to.

“Ah yes. I’m surprised it took you this long to call and bring it up. I figured you two would be at each other’s throats by now,” Piper joked.

“Oh, trust me, we have been. And it hasn’t been pleasant,” Annabeth remarked.

“Next time you see her, say hi for me,” she teased.

“I spend most of my time here trying not to see her,” Annabeth admitted, chuckling lightly, mainly to herself.

“Hmm, I don’t know. That sounds like a lot of energy you’re putting in for this one girl,” Piper observed.

“It’s quite the opposite actually,” she denied. “It’s meant to be for my own mental health and sanity.”

Annabeth knew that Piper could be as annoying as Reyna, except the daughter of Aphrodite was much more likeable and charming. Being friends with Piper was easy since she was naturally so endearing.

“Okay, so what’s the problem now?” she asked reluctantly, knowing that she didn’t have a choice and would be forced to listen to Annabeth’s problems. “Last I remember you two were getting along fine.”

“Last time, we were fighting a war that depended on joining forces in order to succeed, so I had to act. That was me acting, Piper. Keep up,” Annabeth explained.

Piper was silent for a few moments. Annabeth could hear the sound of wind whooshing on the other line, assuming that Piper was outside somewhere. After a few moments, Piper responded bluntly. “And? I’m still not seeing the issue here.”

“Well,” Annabeth began slowly, “now that the fate of the entire world doesn’t rest on our shoulders, I don’t have to exhaust myself by pretending to like her anymore.”

“Okay, yeah. I got it.” Piper shut her down, before Annabeth could become any more patronizing. “You know, Reyna’s really nice, maybe if you just gave her a chance.”

Annabeth let out a noise of disgust. “Whose side are you on?”

“I’m not on anyone’s side,” Piper countered. “You’re my friend, Annabeth, but so is Reyna. And stop rolling your eyes like I know you’re doing right now. I think that both of you need to wake up and realize that whatever this thing you two have going on is ridiculous, and you need to pack it up.”

“I didn’t call you for advice, Piper. I called to complain to you and for you to just hum along and agree with what I’m saying. I knew that you would listen because you’re my best friend who knows about all of my problems, and you’re used to dealing with my bullshit.”

Piper sighed deeply, knowing that she couldn’t change her stubborn friend’s opinion. “Alright, fine then. Go ahead and complain.”

Annabeth had reached her floor of the building. The long hallway appeared to be empty, but she looked up and down and around the corners first to make sure no one was lurking around. During her time in New Rome, more people had come to find out about her rivalry with Reyna, but Annabeth still had a reputation to uphold. If someone heard the Greek girl talking shit about one of the praetors of Camp Jupiter, she could end up in serious trouble.

“Reyna always acts like she can get away with anything. She’s always been like this. She thinks she’s top shit and can just do whatever she wants, and everyone will worship her. I don’t understand how she can be a praetor and be all responsible and professional, but whenever it comes to me, she taunts and teases me like we’re kids.”

Piper was silent for a few moments before responding, making Annabeth think that she had gotten fed up and hung up while she was talking. “Annabeth, sweetie, I hate to tell you this, but sometimes you can act like that too.”

“Not helping, Piper,” she whined.

A secret part inside of her knew that Piper was right. She’d been slowly coming to that conclusion herself. She didn’t like hearing anyone say it because it made her feel guilty. The reality of the situation forced her to confront the truth. The rival who she was fighting with was just another version of herself.

Annabeth reached her room at the end of the hallway. She dreaded to look at her door, noticing that her fears had been confirmed when saw that Reyna had paid her another visit.

“Ugh, see this is what I’m talking about,” she groaned.

“What?”

She ripped yet another note off her door, crumpling it up in the palm of her hand as she reached for the key to her door. She wanted to scream. She wanted to punch something. “She’s been leaving these notes on my door for weeks now. It’s so fucking childish, like who the fuck does this shit?”

Piper chuckled, “She’s leaving you notes? How cute.”

Annabeth entered her room. “She’s just so infuriating, you know? I can’t even put it into words.”

She threw the note and her bag on top of a pile of other papers on her desk, not caring where they ended up. She couldn’t stand to look at the note for a second longer.

“Mhmm. I agree,” Piper mused, following Annabeth’s previous instructions.

“And so are you,” Annabeth responded, disdain dripping from her voice. She flopped backwards onto her bed, her legs hanging off the side.

“What do you want me to say, Annabeth? I’ve been involved with this rivalry right from the start, whether I wanted to be or not. I know everything that you have to say about Reyna. I’m trying my best to be supportive. I’m sorry to say this, but it’s old news.”

Annabeth sighed, “You’re right. I’m sorry, Piper. It’s not fair to you.”

“It’s okay. I can understand where you’re coming from,” she sympathized. “You’re feeling a lot of emotions, and you don’t really know how to process them all.”

“Yes, exactly.” Annabeth breathed a sigh of relief. “You get me.”

“You know what, Annabeth? I think you secretly like her,” Piper laughed. “Now that’s some interesting news.”

Annabeth let out a forced chuckle as she abruptly sat up in shock and horror from her friend’s statement.

“Very funny. Never in a million years,” she declined.

“I’m not joking. All I’m saying is, I know romance when I see it. You can’t deny the daughter of the goddess of love.”

Almost two years ago, when Annabeth had met Piper, the daughter of Aphrodite had wanted nothing to do with her godly heritage. Over time, Annabeth watched Piper become more comfortable in her own skin, as she learned her own strengths and how not to define herself based on who her mother was. Annabeth never imagined that Piper would ever use her own confidence and self-assurance in her identity to tease and ridicule her friend.

“Are you trying to charmspeak me?” Annabeth inquired.

“Not at all,” Piper said. “But the fact that you think I am means I must be convincing.”

“Oh shut up. I will hang up this phone call. Don’t think I won’t,” Annabeth threatened.

Piper let out a deep laugh. “Oh, Annabeth and Reyna sittin’ in a tree.”

“Goodbye, Piper,” Annabeth said uninterestedly.

“K-I-S-S-”

The line went flat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you all enjoyed the chapter! i wanted to upload something before the end of the year, so if you're reading this in 2021, happy new year! :)


	4. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i read over this chapter so many times so it could be perfect and exactly the way i wanted, please enjoy

Studying at New Rome University was a snowball effect. Annabeth Chase believed that she would get used to her life as a student after three months and that she would have a routine by now for how to manage her studies, but currently she was just as clueless and agitated as she’d ever been.

As the weeks and months passed, the workload didn’t lighten up, and neither did her stress, worries, or the constant pressure that was always weighing down on her shoulders. Annabeth was crammed with projects, exams, assignments, and every other form of academic work that her professors could think to assign to add on to the general stress that Annabeth went through on a daily basis.

Sitting at the desk in her dorm room while drowning in papers, Annabeth needed to grasp onto a sense of stability. She checked her planner to calculate how much more work she had to get done and then she checked her watch to see how many more hours were left in the night. After working out the numbers, Annabeth decided that she would need coffee to make it through the night or she wouldn’t make it.

In the late evening, around the time where the quiet of the night started to settle in, Annabeth entered the darkness in her pyjamas, consisting of an oversized concert t-shirt and old pyjama shorts that she’d kept from the store at Camp Half-Blood. She didn’t see any meaningful purpose in putting on regular clothes just to go across the street to the other side of the plaza for a single cup of coffee. Weider things have happened at college than a girl walking around by herself at night in her sleepwear.

As soon as Annabeth stepped outside, she regretted not wearing a more suitable outfit after she was rudely greeted by the wisps of cold wind whooshing all around her body. Assuming that since she was in California, Annabeth thought that she wouldn’t get cold outside at night, but she had underestimated the effects of the autumnal weather.

She hurried across the plaza, shivering and hugging her arms for warmth, reaching her favourite coffee shop in record time. Once she entered and saw that she was the only customer inside, she realized that she had arrived at closing time. The two working employees were sweeping the floor and wiping tables. They were thankfully nice enough to still take Annabeth’s order. She regrettably told the barista what she wanted while apologizing profusely as she tipped both workers nicely and swiftly exited the shop.

Many of the other shops and stores had already completely closed down for the night, leaving Annabeth with only enough light from the lampposts to navigate her way back to her building.

She had only taken a few steps to reach the center of the plaza before she noticed somebody else was approaching her from the opposite direction. She nearly dropped her coffee, clinging tightly to the cup before she had a chance to drop it. With her impeccable reaction time, Annabeth swerved to her left, shielding her drink from spilling. 

“Sorry ‘bout that,” she apologized, looking at the mysterious figure who she had encountered at this time of night.

Her eyes adjusted after some light shined on the other, revealing none other than Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Annabeth questioned.

These occurrences seem to be happening even more and more recently, to Annabeth’s own displeasure and aversion.

“Same as you I guess. Getting coffee.” She nodded to the cup that Annabeth was holding.

“I swear you always pick the worst possible times to run into me,” Annabeth complained, not trying to entertain Reyna at this hour.

She was fed up with the fake attitudes and pleasantries, acting exhausted and blunt as a result.

“No, I don’t. You’re just everywhere I go,” Reyna countered. “I lived here before you did.”

“Then maybe I just have horrible luck,” she decided.

“How do you know it’s not just a coincidence?” Reyna pondered. “First the same running spots, now the same coffee shop at the same time. Are the gods trying to tell us something?”

“Please don’t start with that. It’s really late,” Annabeth sighed.

“Too bad. While we’re here, we could’ve gone on a coffee shop date,” she suggested.

Annabeth groaned. “Yeah, right. The last place I’d ever be found on Earth is on a date with you.”

“For your information, I am lovely on dates. It would be your loss to reject me,” Reyna stated.

“The most annoying girl I’ve ever met is ‘lovely on dates’. Somehow I find that hard to believe,” Annabeth said.

“Well, you wouldn’t know unless you actually went on a date with me, now would you?” Reyna taunted.

“If this is your weird, twisted way of asking me out, the answer is no,” Annabeth declined.

They could have gone back and forth like this until the sun came up. Both demigods were smart and witty enough to throw out insult after insult. In the back of her mind, Annabeth knew she had work to do and other priorities to attend to. Standing in the middle of the plaza with only the lights of the street lamps illuminating the scene, the situation was too enticing to pass up on. Usually, Reyna was the one who led the conversation, causing Annabeth to fall behind and struggle to keep up. For some unknown reason, Annabeth had filled that role tonight, and she was too exhilarated to let go of it so soon. She didn’t know when the next opportunity would be to indulge herself like this.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Reyna snapped. “Stop trying to put words in my mouth.”

“You’re the one who brought it up,” Annabeth reminded her.

“It was a joke,” Reyna explained. “I thought maybe you’d understand that, or did I underestimate the wisdom of the daughter of Athena.”

Reyna chose her words carefully, and she had struck a nerve. Annabeth knew how the Romans felt about Athena and about Annabeth too by association. Reyna knew how to push all of Annabeth’s buttons at the same time just by insulting her intelligence.

“Don't try to defend yourself by bringing me down!” Annabeth exclaimed.

“Keep your voice down. Do you want to wake up the entire city?” Reyna chastised.

“I don’t want to be here anyway. I have to leave. I have work to do,” she said.

“For what class?” Reyna began.

“Calculus,” Annabeth responded, confusion coating the tone of her voice. “Why do you care all of a sudden?”

“Just wondering. That sounds really difficult,” she commented, drastically lowering the volume of her voice, making Annabeth wonder if she was heeding her own advice or if she was trying to be friendly for once in her 18 years of life. The reason had to be the former.

“Yeah, well, I’m a daughter of Athena. I can handle it,” Annabeth defended.

“And, uh, is college really tough?” Reyna continued.

“Is this your attempt at small talk or something?” she asked, judgingly raising an eyebrow. “‘Cause it’s really not a good look on you.”

“I mean, yeah? Sort of. I don’t know. I’ve just been kind of considering studying here myself,” Reyna admitted.

“Oh, well that’s nice,” Annabeth said. “You know there are other people who you could talk to about this, like literally anyone else but me.”

“Yeah, it just popped into my head randomly. I haven’t really made a decision yet. I’ve just been thinking about it,” she responded sheepishly.

“Okay.”

For the first time that night, a heavy silence fell between the two bickering girls. Annabeth was slowly getting colder, holding tightly to the warm drink in her hand. She desperately wanted to leave Reyna and get out of the cold.

Annabeth could use the silence as an excuse to end the surreal conversation and walk away, not feeling bad about doing so in the slightest. Reyna had lived in California longer and had grown up in Puerto Rico. The Roman demigod was more aptly dressed for the weather than Annabeth was. Her outfit was fine. She wore a knitted sweater in the same shade of purple as the Camp Jupiter, except without the logo, complemented with ripped, faded blue jeans.

Annabeth suddenly felt underdressed. The thought was extremely stupid, and Annabeth tried her best to get over it quickly. Comparing herself to Reyna was the most trivial action she could do. She shouldn’t care, and she wouldn’t have if Reyna didn’t look as great as she always does.

While she looked as regal as ever on the outside, Annabeth wondered what was going on inside Reyna’s mind. She thought to herself about how she noticed that something was slightly different about Reyna, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

Even after Annabeth had analyzed the praetor’s fashion style and her out-of-the-ordinary behaviour, the silence between them was still present like a thick layer of ice.

“Okay, well, if that’s all, then I’m going to go back to my dorm room now,” Annabeth announced.

Rather than waste her energy by standing around and playing impossible games that she couldn’t win, she started walking away. She could’ve just brushed off her suspicions. Maybe Reyna was just as sleep-deprived as Annabeth was. This encounter may as well have never happened, like an absurd fever dream.

“Wait,” Reyna called out.

“What is it now?” Annabeth asked with hostility, spinning around on her heel.

“What drink did you get?” she wondered.

“Just a black coffee,” Annabeth answered.

“Oh that’s nice,” Reyna commented. “They have really good hot chocolates here. You should try one some time.”

“Whatever,” she snapped, shaking her head. “You stopped me to tell me that? Who even cares? Gods, you’re so annoying.”

“Listen, Annabeth, I get where you’re coming from, but you can let your guard down every once in a while,” Reyna said.

Annabeth let out the deepest exhale that she could muster. She looked Reyna directly in the eyes for a final time, as best as she could in the dim lighting, and said, “Stop wasting my time.”

“You know, I really think that we actually could have been friends if things were different,” Reyna confronted, “but you ruined any chance of that happening with all your hostility and bitterness. You and I are not that different, and I know you know it too.”

“I don’t wanna be your stupid friend,” Annabeth countered.

“C’mon, Chase,” Reyna pleaded softly. “All I’m asking is for you to be reasonable. Think about it.”

Annabeth shook off Reyna’s comment. “Listen, I don’t know what games you’re trying to play, but I really don’t have time for this. I really need to go study. If you want to annoy and tease me, please just do it another time.”

She let out a deep sigh, looking at Reyna’s face one last time and registering an expression of desperation and other unreadable emotions, but ultimately deciding to ignore all of them.

No matter how clearly Annabeth explained herself, Reyna wasn’t going to leave her alone.

“So you’re just gonna walk away and leave me here, and I’m just supposed to believe that you want nothing to do with me? You came to my favourite coffee shop in the middle of the night and expected not to bump into me here?” Reyna questioned.

“Yeah? I thought that that was pretty obvious. How was I supposed to know that this is your favourite coffee shop?” Annabeth asked quizzically.

“I’m the one who told you about it the first time you came here,” she replied harshly.

“Yeah, right, like I’m supposed to remember that,” Annabeth denied.

As soon as Reyna had mentioned it, Annabeth had instantly remembered. The memories in her brain came flooding in like a dam. She remembered the time where Reyna had selflessly bought the two of them hot chocolates and showed her her favourite location in New Rome, the Garden of Bacchus, where they had had their first ever proper discussion with each other. Reyna had just mentioned her favourite drink, dropping details and leaving clues that Annabeth was too insensitive to see.

Annabeth remembered that Reyna had mentioned that the garden was her favourite place. She wondered if that were still true or if Reyna now had negative memories associated with the spot because the girls had started their rivalry there too.

Annabeth had suddenly changed so quickly, her thoughts, her expression. Her breathing slowed down, taking in the weight of this heavy moment.

She thought about the bittersweet memory over and over in her mind, trying to remember as many details as she could. Reyna really had been so generous that day, and instead all she got in return was harshness from the daughter of Athena. If everything hadn’t gone wrong that day, maybe Annabeth and Reyna really would’ve turned out to be good friends. Rather than reminisce, Annabeth turned her attention back towards Reyna, shoving her pleasant, blissful thoughts aside.

“Look, Reyna, it’s really late, and I wasn’t expecting to have this big bomb dropped on me,” she admitted.

Reyna looked uncomfortable, as she ran her hands up and down her arms that were folded over her chest. “This is a terrible apology.”

Annabeth wasn’t very good with apologies, which was very evident for both girls. She didn’t know how to make it up to Reyna, or even if she should considering the amounts of maliciousness and resentment she had felt towards her only a few minutes ago.

Annabeth sighed. “I’m not gonna stand here all night trying to make it up to you. Don’t you think you should be apologizing to me too?”

“You know what I think? I think you want to be out here, standing with me,” Reyna said.

“You don’t...you don’t know what I think,” Annabeth denied.

She began approaching Reyna, continuing to keep her voice down since she didn’t want to shout the next words that she was going to say so she needed to get closer. She met Reyna in the middle underneath the spotlight of a tall street lamp.

Staring at Reyna’s face clearly illuminated in the combinations of yellows and oranges, she said, “I just think that—” and brought her lips towards Reyna’s to share a kiss with the daughter of Bellona.

The kiss was messy and rushed, yet Annabeth couldn’t remember a time where she had shared a kiss with someone that was better than this one. This was the first time where Annabeth had experienced a kiss that was as firm and steady as a rock, feeling Reyna process the abruptness of Annabeth’s unpredictable action.

Annabeth’s mouth lingered with the faint taste of coffee that mixed and faded away the more she moved her lips in sync with Reyna’s after she’d gotten a hold of herself. Feeling Reyna’s lips on hers, she allowed herself to melt into the kiss. She revelled in the sensation of the way Reyna’s soft chapstick-coated lips moved against her own. The rhythm that they devised was slow, allowing them to test out the waters of kissing your sworn enemy for the first time. She couldn’t stop herself from urgently forcing her cool lips to press against Reyna’s warm ones, melting at the sensation that instantly warmed her up and created a pool of warmth in the pit of her stomach.

For once in her life, Annabeth hadn’t thought about doing something before she acted. Of all of the things that she could do to be rebellious in college, kissing the praetor of Camp Jupiter was not one of them. The decision would turn out to be one of the best that she had ever made except she couldn’t see it right away.

Just before Reyna could eagerly slip her tongue inside Annabeth’s mouth, the Greek demigod had to pull away. She started panicking. She had enjoyed the kiss, something that she didn’t expect to happen. She didn’t know what she expected exactly when she decided to spontaneously kiss Reyna, but she knew she had to end this before everything blew way out of proportion.

Kissing the daughter of Bellona had reduced Annabeth into a messy pile of nerves. She tried her best to process the feeling of the kiss, her lips still tingling, while still attempting to understand all of Reyna’s comments from before. Annabeth stared blankly at Reyna while her mind was running a mile a minute.

The most alarming thought going through Annabeth’s mind was that she secretly liked the kiss. She would never even consider admitting it to Reyna, but not only had the kiss not been awful and horrible like Annabeth would have previously believed, but the kiss that they had just shared was quite ideal as far as kisses go.

Annabeth held on tightly around Reyna’s arms, her tough muscles, that she could still feel even through the thickness of her sweater. Normally, Annabeth never would have crossed that boundary for how physical the enemies were willing to get with each other, but after they had shared a kiss, the lines were starting to look a little blurry. Reyna didn’t push her away, and she saw that as a good sign.

Another type of silence fell between them, different from before. Annabeth listened to Reyna’s rhythmic breathing, utilizing the steady beat to calm herself down and focus. She wanted to recede into her own mind, but she knew that she needed to say something to clear the air between them.

“Are you...are you mad?” Annabeth wondered.

Reyna paused, rather than answer Annabeth’s question.

Annabeth was exceedingly struggling in figuring out what to say. She didn’t have any experience in the making-out-with-your-enemy department. She didn’t know what to say in order to try and douse the fire that she had started. How were you supposed to talk to your sworn enemy after you spontaneously kissed her?

Reyna could be feeling any mix of emotions right now, but above all else Annabeth needed to know if she was upset or angry. Annabeth stared at Reyna. The faint light from above swirled around her face, making Annabeth unable to read any signals or emotions on the praetor’s face. The exhaled smoke from Annabeth’s breath swirled between the two of them. She let her hands move towards Reyna’s chest, feeling with the pads of her fingers the parts of her skin that poked out from the small patterned holes in her sweater. Annabeth rested her hands just beneath Reyna’s collarbone, curling her fingers inwards, still trying to preserve the heat between them.

With every passing second of lingering silence, Annabeth could feel her heart beating louder and louder in her chest. Every other part of her body had gone numb, from her fears and from the chilly wind circling around her.

After several moments, Reyna finally said, “No.”

Annabeth was stunned. The fact that Reyna had taken so long to answer, Annabeth was expecting a lengthy response. She even would have been fine if Reyna had spewed an inadequate jumble of words as a result of her own panic and confusion because that’s exactly what Annabeth would’ve done. As it turns out, the girls weren’t on the same page about what had happened.

“No?” Annabeth inquired. “I mean, that’s good, but is that all you’re going to say?”

“What do you want me to say?” Reyna asked reluctantly, her voice raspy.

Being Wisdom’s daughter certainly didn’t give Annabeth any advantages when trying to decipher messages from Reyna. One minute, the praetor had been honest and open enough with her to allow her to loosen up and become more vulnerable and then the next, she was terse and firmly sewn shut.

Little by little, Annabeth was learning that Reyna wasn’t as in-tune with her emotions as she thought she would be. Her sour attitude was putting Annabeth in her own bitter mood. Playing aloof was not one of Reyna’s strengths. Her dismissive attitude turned away anyone and everyone who she cared about, like a counterintuitive coping mechanism. This was the first time that Reyna could show someone that she truly cared about them, putting herself on true, authentic display, yet she had gone in a totally different direction.

A sudden gust of wind blew from behind Reyna into Annabeth’s face. The daughter of Athena reflexively lowered her head, pressing her forehead against the sturdy upper body of the daughter of Bellona. Reyna didn’t waver to Annabeth’s movement which made Annabeth feel stupid and embarrassed at her own reaction.

They both needed to go back inside, Annabeth decided, whether that be separately or together.

“Nothing. Forget it. I’m leaving,” Annabeth decided.

She pried her hands away from Reyna, swiftly turning around. Before she could even take a step forward, she felt Reyna get a tight hold on her right shoulder. Reyna spun her back around as she grabbed Annabeth’s waist, securing her grip on the small of her back as she pulled her in for another kiss.

The second time was deeper, more sensual, the way their first kiss should’ve felt. The spontaneity and passion were still clearly displayed, having been created abruptly out of nothing with no prior warning, but Reyna knew how to take control and make Annabeth feel like she was walking on air. She created a feeling in Annabeth that she’d never experienced before with anyone else. Reyna had been unable to communicate her feelings with words, but that still didn’t stop her from using her lips, mouth, and tongue.

The girls surprisingly settled on a rhythm to follow, moving their lips in perfect synchronicity. Annabeth couldn’t stop herself from eagerly pressing her lips against Reyna’s, relishing in the soft and warm sensation that she received.

Annabeth felt the gentle touch of Reyna’s hand grab her chin, tilting it upward slightly to perfectly align the position of their lips. Annabeth felt a slight twinge in Reyna’s lips which she took to understand as a smirk of satisfaction on her part from showing off her height yet again.

It drove Annabeth crazy how she knew this girl’s personality down to every last detail. Throughout the years where they had both been spending time and effort into openly hating each other, neither of them had realized until now that they were secretly learning to understand one another as well. All of the time that Annabeth had spent actively hating Reyna had somehow morphed into her new infatuation with the daughter of Bellona. Their entire rivalry had been an elaborate cover-up from the start.

The girls pulled away from each other simultaneously this time. They pressed their foreheads together, the both of them gasping for air, listening to each other’s heavy breathing as the only sound that filled their surroundings. Even after a second time, Annabeth still enjoyed the kiss just as much as the first. She couldn’t admit her true feelings to Reyna, but she was glad that the praetor had been bold and dominant enough to direct the situation to how she wanted the events to play out.

“You’re not getting away from me that easily,” Reyna whispered.

Annabeth chuckled at both Reyna’s tough-girl attitude and at where her own priorities lie. “I have a test tomorrow. I really need to go.”

“You don’t want to be studying. You’ll have a much better time with me,” Reyna said.

“That is so corny,” Annabeth teased. “But somehow I don’t mind it.”

“Come back to Camp Jupiter with me,” Reyna offered.

She was a very straightforward woman. Annabeth’s revelation caused her to start seeing the situation more clearly, widening her horizons in a way she never thought would be possible. Reyna had asked her out for a second time tonight. Only this time, more directly, and Annabeth knew that Reyna wasn’t joking. Her ears started ringing and her whole body showed every reaction it could to tell her to run away and never look back. She was in uncharted waters, but she was also ready to dive in headfirst.

Reyna waited for a response, an acceptance or a refusal. She was getting impatient, and Annabeth was feeling the pressure. She needed to make a life-changing decision in seconds.

Putting their history aside, Annabeth would be stupid not to take up Reyna’s offer. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity had fallen into her lap. If she had crossed paths with any other person tonight, she would jump at the chance, no questions asked. Just because Reyna was the one offering, Annabeth didn’t think that that was a good enough reason to turn away an aroused, available, and willing person. She had experienced how much she enjoyed kissing Reyna even if it did scare her. If she took up Reyna’s offer, they could turn up the heat.

“The night is still young,” Reyna proposed, gradually making the offer sound more enticing.

Reyna felt Annabeth’s body, rubbing her hands in circles over the cool skin, transferring bodily heat in a similar way that she could transfer her strength to other people as a daughter of Bellona.

“Don’t you think we’re making a huge mistake? Are you sure you want to go along with this?” Annabeth asked, giving both of them one final chance to back out.

Reyna sighed, rolling her eyes. “Just shut up and kiss me.”

Annabeth couldn’t argue with that. Before she knew it, the daughter of Bellona had her lips pressed firmly against Annabeth’s once again, while cupping the sides of her face.

The task didn’t become gratuitous or repetitive. By this point, they had simply and easily picked up where they left off. In only a few moments, they had developed their own understanding of each other. They both understood and knew what made the other one tick, and they could finally use their knowledge to satisfy and please each other for the first time.

The blissful state they were in was fragile and delicate enough to be broken by a single sound. Annabeth was rudely yanked away from her comfort zone, upon hearing the familiar ringing of the bell of the door to the coffee shop.

Annabeth’s eyes shot wide open, her lips tensing up against Reyna’s along with the rest of her body. She shoved the praetor as forcefully as she could, which had been enough to send her hurtling back a few steps Thankfully, this setting was typical of the two of them that no one would ask any questions.

The abruptness of Annabeth’s actions brought both demigods back to reality. They were back to being two enemies who would never unapologetically make out with each other on their own accord.

In the darkness, Annabeth couldn’t see where the workers were standing or in which direction they had gone. She cursed under her breath. Panic and anger swelled up inside of her, instantly replacing all of the pleasant emotions and warm feelings that she had been experiencing moments ago.

She looked over to Reyna, unable to see the praetor’s expression either, now that she was no longer standing in the light. Annabeth could only assume she had caused looks of shock, confusion, and betrayal to appear on Reyna’s face.

“I told you we should’ve been more careful,” Annabeth remarked, before speeding back to her building.

She travelled back to her room as fast as she could as if she were being chased by a monster. She didn’t want to risk Reyna running after her or catching up to her in the middle of her hallway. There would be no way to justify or explain that situation to any onlookers.

Annabeth unlocked the door to her room and slipped inside, pressing her back up against the door. She gave herself a chance to catch her breath, desperately needing to calm down after the intensity.

Her study plans had been thrown out the window. Too rattled and distracted to do any work, she climbed into bed, ready to put an end to the night.

Only as she was about to drift off to sleep did Annabeth realize that she never had a chance to drink the coffee that had caused her late-night adventure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it wouldn't be a hoo fic if it didn't end with a cliffhanger right ;)


	5. Part Four

As soon as Annabeth Chase woke up the next morning, her brain was immediately and rudely flooded with thoughts about Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano. She tried her best to forget what had happened last night, seeking out distractions to no avail. The Roman demigod wouldn’t leave her mind.

After dragging herself out of bed with great difficulty, Annabeth prepared herself to go write her exam. She reluctantly trudged to her classroom, while trying to go over as much information in her notes as possible. She dreaded writing the exam because of her lack of preparation. She’d never done anything like this before, but college was the place where you were supposed to try new things.

She had given up her precious study time to go on a late-night adventure. She was so overwhelmed after she had willingly kissed her greatest enemy multiple times that the only way she could process and cope was to go to sleep.

Annabeth looked as sluggish as she felt. She stared cluelessly at her blank paper trying to think of any answer that she could write down. She left the exam room after an hour, cursing at herself, knowing that she could’ve performed better but didn’t because of everything that was going on.

The sun outside of the building was obscenely bright, directly contrasting the way Annabeth felt. She reached the main plaza, eyeing her residence building in the distance. All she wanted to do now was go back to her room uninterrupted and crawl back under the blankets in her bed.

If only she knew that that wouldn’t be possible with an unrelenting Roman demigod who had been spending all day putting in an effort to seek her out.

“Hey, Annabeth!” Reyna yelled.

Her voice echoed across the plaza. Some bystanders turned their heads to see the source of the noise, while others knew exactly what was going on and were completely exhausted at this point with the infamous rivalry.

Annabeth stopped walking and turned around to see the enthusiastic daughter of Bellona approaching her, jogging at an incredible speed.

Annabeth very clearly didn’t have the energy to indulge Reyna in whatever intentions she had planned, as was the case most of the time. Particularly today, she didn’t want to be around the source of what had started her sour and pessimistic attitude in the first place. The last thing she needed was more of Reyna, the person who had caused her current miserable emotional state and her subsequent bad test scores. She simply wanted to put an end to all of this as fast as she possibly could.

She decided that she didn’t have to be as extremely rude and hostile as she normally was around Reyna. She was just tired, and the more they argued, the less time Annabeth spent recharging her batteries.

“You are the last person I want to see right now,” Annabeth grumbled.

“Hello to you too, sunshine,” she smiled.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. She turned to leave without uttering another word. Reyna grabbed her wrist, which Annabeth immediately yanked away from her grasp without a second thought.

“What’s up with you? Why are you being so closed off?” Reyna questioned.

“Because we’re not supposed to be acting friendly.” Annabeth gritted her teeth. Reyna was beginning to understand, and Annabeth could see it on her face. The gears were turning in her brain. “Everyone around us doesn’t know about what we did last night, and I intend to keep it that way.”

After she clarified and she and Reyna were on the same page, the praetor changed her expression to match how she usually looked: stern and fierce.

“Smart thinking, Chase.” Reyna’s lips turned up in a playful smirk, impression and satisfaction written all over her face.

Hearing Reyna use her nickname for her suddenly felt different somehow. Intimacy swirled around between them in the atmosphere. Reyna’s tone had changed drastically. She spoke more affectionately, like she was the only one who was allowed to use ‘Chase’. She had always been the only one to regularly refer to Annabeth by her surname, but this was like if Reyna really was the only one allowed to use it. Normally, Annabeth would’ve seen that as a taunt, but after last night, she felt a different way about Reyna’s usual snarky comments and taunts. Instead of the usual knots she got from her stomach twisting in rage, she felt a pool of warmth spreading throughout her body. She felt shaky as she felt a lump form in her throat. Annabethed refused to speak out of a fear of making a fool of herself.

“Maybe we should pick this up in private,” Reyna offered.

“There’s nothing to pick up. It’s over. Last night was a one time thing. It didn’t mean anything,” Annabeth rejected.

“You kissed me first, though. That’s gotta mean something, right?” she whispered.

Annabeth was silent and tense. She apprehensively looked side to side, seeing if anyone in the plaza had caught on to Reyna’s mention of their kiss. She tried her best to come up with a good, valid excuse to deny Reyna and her feelings for her, but all she did was stand still in silence.

“Okay, fine. I can’t get you to budge, so I won’t waste my time. I’ll drop it. I understand. This isn’t the time,” Reyna confirmed. “See you later, Chase.”

With one final glance, the praetor turned around and walked away. Annabeth took that as her own cue to leave, thankful that their conversation didn’t drag on for too long like she had hoped.

She reached her room after a few minutes and immediately sat down at her desk chair. She pulled out her supplies and materials from her bag, wasting no time before getting to work.

Annabeth worked and studied uninterrupted for the rest of the afternoon and the evening, with little to no breaks.

At the end of a rigorous day of catching up on school work, in the quiet of the night, Annabeth spent her time on herself.

She relished in the peacefulness that she had been granted. She lay down on her back on her bed with her phone in one hand looking at nothing of particular interest. Her other hand was placed on her stomach. She used the relaxed pattern of breathing from her chest rising and falling to keep herself steady and calm. The lights of her room were off, her phone screen providing the only source of illumination. The scene that she had created for herself was a nice contrast from everything else that she had experienced that day. She desperately needed some time where she could really take care of herself.

When Annabeth felt her eyes begin to droop and sag from staring at the screen for too long, she put her phone to the side. She looked up at the blank ceiling above her and thought about anything that came to mind, letting her thoughts come and go.

She inevitably had thoughts about Reyna of course, but she forced them back into the depths of her mind.

A sudden knock on the door made Annabeth jump up, pulling her out of her relaxed state of mind. She reluctantly got herself out of bed and cautiously opened the door to see who had paid her a visit at this time of night. She carefully peeked through the crack in the door.

“Surprised to see me?” Reyna smirked.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Annabeth snapped.

The praetor chuckled at Annabeth’s equally snarky response before the expression on her face morphed, looking more serious.

“Can we talk?” she asked.

Annabeth was ready to slam the door in Reyna’s face before she had asked her the infamous three-word question. She hated to admit it, but Reyna’s words had gotten her attention. Annabeth opened the door completely, understanding that this wasn’t a light-hearted or teasing situation. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the praetor.

“You said you were going to drop this,” Annabeth confronted.

“Annabeth, you had to have known that I was lying,” Reyna said.

She groaned. “Just go away, Reyna.”

“I just have some things I want to say,” Reyna admitted.

She was clearly beating around the bush. Something was on her mind, something important, but she was stalling.

“Then spit it out and say it,” Annabeth demanded.

She looked at Reyna, wondering why she suddenly looked so uncomfortable, almost a little bit shy. “Um, actually, I’d prefer if we could talk in private, which is why I came to see you here and now.”

Annabeth wanted to decline Reyna’s request. Her room was the only place on campus where she had a modicum of privacy and safety from Reyna. She was a little too stubborn and reluctant to, quite literally, let her enemy into her territory, being the daughter of Athena and all.

“Well, I don’t recall asking you to come over, so showing up uninvited isn’t doing you any favours,” Annabeth said.

“I know,” Reyna said. “I’m sorry, but—I know you didn’t want to talk to me earlier, but I can’t just let this go. I need to talk to you.”

“Can’t you say it out here?” she asked.

“I would really rather have this conversation where somebody can’t accidentally overhear us. I think you would agree,” Reyna reasoned.

Annabeth understood the signals that Reyna was trying desperately to communicate, but she didn’t like where the conversation was heading before it had even started, so she was hesitant to let it go any further. Reyna had tried to open up in the middle of the plaza earlier today. She’d even made a small attempt last night by inviting Annabeth to Camp Jupiter. Nighttime seemed like the perfect time for them to discuss their relationship or rivalry or whatever it was at this point. She knew deep down inside that there was no denying Reyna, and she wouldn’t be able to win out in the end. Annabeth should’ve known that from the start based on their animose history.

“Did anyone see you come here?” Annabeth asked.

“No,” she answered.

Poking her head outside and performing a quick look up and down the hallway to double check and be extra careful, Annabeth granted Reyna permission to enter.

Annabeth took a few steps backward into her room, allowing Reyna to enter. The praetor closed the door behind her, standing in front of Annabeth with her hands in the pockets of her grey sweatpants. The girls stared at each other. The small dorm room didn’t allow for much space for them to move around, and with Annabeth’s lack of decoration, Reyna didn’t have much else to look at.

“I don’t know why, but I thought your room would be bigger,” Reyna commented.

“Small space helps me think. Keeps me from getting distracted,” Annabeth explained.

“That’s good. Means we can have a productive conversation,” she said.

Annabeth looked Reyna in the eyes, silently asking her to continue with what she had wanted to say earlier.

“Should we turn the lights on?” Reyna suggested.

“No, I don’t want to see your face,” Annabeth declined.

“Okay, well,” she began, taking a deep breath, “I wanted to admit to you that I actually didn’t totally hate kissing you.”

“Thanks,” Annabeth said.

“Thanks?” Reyna questioned. “That’s all you’re going to say? Aren’t you going to do something similar and admit that you liked it too?”

“No, why would I do that?” she asked quizzically.

“Because I know you did and don’t even try and deny it, Annabeth. I saw the way you were looking at me, and you’ve never looked at me like that before,” Reyna said.

“First of all, we were in the dark, so I don’t know what you saw. I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is all too difficult to figure out. It’s a whole messy situation,” Annabeth said.

“So your solution is to run from it?” she wondered, tilting her head.

Annabeth stared at the protruding veins of Reyna’s neck muscles. Her focus wavered for only a moment before she responded to Reyna’s question with a generic rebuttal. “It was a mistake. I was really tired last night, and I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

She had been trying to forget last night had ever happened and repress it, but Reyna constantly bringing it up wasn’t helping.

“You’re scared,” Reyna observed.

Annabeth scoffed. “Thanks for coming into my room and calling me out. That’s what everyone likes to hear.”

Reyna laughed gently. She slightly inched closer to Annabeth. She pulled her right hand out of her pocket, slowly bringing it up to touch Annabeth’s chin.

“What are you so afraid of, Annabeth?” Reyna whispered. “Afraid someone will find out?”

Annabeth gulped, feeling her mouth going dry. Reyna had read her thoughts and knew exactly what she was thinking.

“Don’t worry,” Reyna continued. “Nobody’s around this time.”

Against her wishes, Annabeth felt herself naturally becoming subdued, leaning in against the feelings and the sensations.

“I’m not afraid,” Annabeth denied weakly.

“Good,” Reyna smirked, her mouth inches away from Annabeth’s. “Then you won’t mind if I do this.”

Once again, their lips came together to share another heated, passionate kiss. Annabeth gets that same warm and fuzzy feeling from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. The kiss was so warm and heavy that Annabeth thought she might melt and fall over if it weren’t for Reyna’s strong hold on her. She leaned into the kiss in the same way that she leaned closer into Reyna’s arms. Their bodies were pushing closer together. Annabeth didn’t hesitate to run her hands over every inch of Reyna’s body, adoring her firm muscles.

The girls had learned how to follow a rhythm that was equally pleasurable to both of them. Having now kissed the praetor of Camp Jupiter multiple times, after a while, Annabeth had to ignore the fact that she was kissing Reyna and just let herself _feel_ , and she felt elated. She couldn’t stop herself from eagerly and hurriedly running her tongue along Reyna’s, desperately trying to explore every corner of her mouth.

Reyna pulled away from the kiss for a few brief moments to swiftly pull her t-shirt over her head. The girls were both breathing deeply as Reyna now stood in front of Annabeth wearing nothing but a black sports bra, putting her tight abdominal muscles on display.

Continuing their deep kiss, Annabeth was able to feel Reyna’s exposed muscles. Annabeth’s curiosity was running wild. She was finally able to explore Reyna’s back muscles the way she had craved for some time now.

Reyna’s muscles were so unbelievably tight. Nothing could have helped Annabeth anticipate how stiff they would be, like they were made of metal. Annabeth ran her fingers over every bump and groove that had formed from all the training Reyna had done in her life. Annabeth didn’t need to look at them directly to know that they framed Reyna’s back and the rest of her body so well.

Reyna pulled away, allowing both girls to catch their breath and take in some air. They stayed close to one another with their hands still in the same positions on the other’s body. Their faces were inches apart.

“I think you’ll agree that we’ve had enough foreplay to last a lifetime,” Reyna said.

“Definitely,” Annabeth confirmed.

“Lie down,” she ordered.

Reyna motioned with her head next to the bed that the girls were standing beside. Annabeth immediately moved and laid her head on the pillow with her knees bent.

Reyna slowly moved over to the bed, sensually climbing on top of Annabeth. She shuffled around before getting comfortable by straddling her, sitting directly on top of Annabeth’s pussy, lined up exactly with her own. Reyna leaned back slightly, resting her weight on Annabeth’s thighs.

“Are you sure you want to go along with this?” Annabeth asked, admittedly starting to get nervous. Looking up at Reyna and her determined, serious face created some slight concerns.

“You think too much, daughter of Athena,” Reyna said.

Her voice had dropped an octave when she spoke. The deepness of Reyna’s voice caught Annabeth off guard. Reyna’s deep and heavy voice was surprisingly a huge turn on for Annabeth. Being a praetor, Reyna knew how to command and boss people around effectively, and Annabeth was more than excited to experience it firsthand.

Annabeth could feel her pussy growing increasingly and drastically wet.

Reyna pushed her body down on Annabeth’s. Her thighs were pushing into the sides of Annabeth’s hips, and Annabeth was ready to be completely squeezed and crushed by them. She had enveloped her in another slow kiss, holding her face in her hands and her fingers running along the sides of her cheeks. Short, pleasurable moans escaped her mouth and blended into the kiss, vibrating along Reyna’s sensitive, soft lips. Her lips were melting from the enjoyment. Her body that had been so previously stiff and hesitant was now relaxing and uncurling. She stretched out her legs across the bed, contrasting how hesitant she had been only moments ago. Annabeth was learning that not only was she fine with being underneath Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano but that she was starting to enjoy it. After a nearly two-year pointless rivalry, Annabeth and Reyna were finally starting to direct their fiery chemistry towards each other in a different way.

Reyna eagerly played with the hem of Annabeth’s shirt, as if the same casual shirt that she had been wearing during their encounter last night had suddenly become very interesting. Reyna sensually placed her cool hands around Annabeth’s waist, humming quietly while feeling the soft skin.

In a split-second decision, Annabeth quickly pulled her shirt off over her head and threw it on the ground beside her, earning a smirk from Reyna in support.

Before Reyna had shown up to Annabeth’s room, she had been lounging around and hadn’t been wearing any sort of bra. The daughter of Athena was lying down bare-chested underneath the praetor of Camp Jupiter, her greatest rival.

“Excited, huh?” Reyna noted.

“Go big or go home, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Reyna reached out to freely feel up the entirety of Annabeth’s chest and to massage her tits. The sensations of Reyna’s large hands, encasing her tits, unexpectedly forced Annabeth to feel relaxed. Her head flew back instinctively.

Annabeth couldn’t have asked for a better reaction to someone seeing her topless for the first time. Reyna’s initial reaction, followed by her willingness, meant that Annabeth was slowly starting to become more on board.

With every stroke and tug of the sensitive skin around her nipples, Annabeth felt herself edging closer towards the point of no return, where she wouldn’t be able to hold out if Reyna were to keep up with the way she was treating her.

This wasn’t about Reyna. Annabeth was being selfish, and she knew it. She didn’t give a shit what Reyna got out of it. She wasn’t looking to please her or make her feel good. She only cared about how she felt.

“Fuck me,” Annabeth whispered.

“Oh, you want me to fuck you?” Reyna inquired. “You want me to play with your pussy until it’s numb?”

Annabeth’s interjection had been more general, but with the way her clit was twinging with curiosity and excitement, she had to act on it. She couldn’t resist that deep voice.

Reyna’s offered response was so abrupt that all Annabeth could manage in a shocked, succinct response was, “Mhm.”

Annabeth had seen Reyna’s intimidating and dominating side before, but that was in the midst of battle or usually during many of their common petty arguments. Annabeth was witnessing a whole new side of Reyna for the first time.

For one final time, Reyna kissed Annabeth. She left quick pecks all over Annabeth’s neck, nibbling at the skin with her teeth. She took her time in making her way down Annabeth’s bare chest, leaving a trail of lingering, wet kisses. She stopped in between her tits, giving the area special attention.

Everything about Annabeth was warm. Her lips were warm and still pulsating after kissing Reyna for so long. Blood circulated all around her body making her warm. She was getting more turned on by the minute, as Reyna stuck her hand inside Annabeth’s shorts and began running her fingers along the underwear feeling her warm, wet pussy through the fabric.

Reyna lifted her lips and tongue off of where they had been on Annabeth’s hips. “Brace yourself, baby.”

She started teasing and tugging at the delicate fabric, without completely removing it off Annabeth’s body. Her fingers brushed against the skin slightly above her pussy and her clit.

“Stop playing, and give me what I want,” Annabeth ordered.

“You’re being demanding.”

“You’re being slow.”

Reyna pointedly ignored Annabeth’s wishes, continuing to circle around Annabeth’s now pulsating sensitive areas. Watching Reyna and seeing the devilish look in her eyes, Annabeth realized that Reyna might not have any intention of pleasuring Annabeth at all.

“Reyna, please,” she begged quietly.

Annabeth felt humiliated, but she desperately needed this at the same time. If Reyna were to back out now, that would be one of the cruelest things that Annabeth had ever witnessed her do.

The praetor looked down at her with a familiar satisfied expression on her face.

“All you had to do was ask,” Reyna chuckled gently.

She grabbed the hem of Annabeth’s shorts, pulling them down at the same time as her underwear. She bunched them up in a ball and put them to the side of Annabeth's twin bed.

After making Annabeth suffer, once she got down to it, Reyna wasted no time.

Two of Reyna’s fingers ghosted over Annabeth’s clit, gently feeling the sensitive bud. She started moving her fingers slowly while feeling the surrounding areas. Annabeth felt every nuance, every stroke, and every sensation of Reyna’s fingers running along her entire pussy, leaving not a single inch untouched or unexplored.

“Fuck, you’re still so hard,” Reyna observed, as she continued to stimulate the sensitive bud. “We’ll need to get you to relax a bit more.”

Annabeth knew that. She was the one feeling it, after all. She had hoped that by this point she would be ready, especially after she had outwardly begged for this to happen.

Taking charge, Reyna bent over again, lying her full body on top of Annabeth who found the weight comforting. She pressed her lips against hers and began kissing her deeply.

Meanwhile, her hands started roaming across Annabeth’s body, feeling the sensitive skin of her stomach and waist. Reyna kept her lips pressed firmly against Annabeth’s, not daring to pull away in the slightest. Reyna’s pressing weight was reassuring. Annabeth felt special having Reyna’s full, undivided attention.

In the midst of the familiar kissing, when Annabeth was distracted from everything and focussed on Reyna, the praetor slipped a hand down between Annabeth’s thighs to her pussy once again to feel up the wetness and relish in the touch and sensation of it. Annabeth hadn’t been expecting the initial touch, forcing her hips to instinctively jerk upward. Annabeth could feel Reyna’s lips twist upward in a characteristic, satisfied smile.

“Think you’re ready now,” Reyna mumbled.

Sliding down without breaking eye contact, Reyna delicately placed the same two fingers back on Annabeth’s willing, prepared clit. Reyna released a hot breath against Annabeth’s pussy, earning a moan out of her.

The way Reyna touched and felt Annabeth’s pussy was the way that only one of her enemies would. She stroked the sensitive, wet bud working towards getting Annabeth to gasp breathlessly, trying to make Annabeth unable to keep up with her. Reyna was pouring her built-up anger, frustration, and most of all the sexual tension that had manifested since day one into the way she hatefully fucked and fingered her enemy.

“Keep touching my clit, please,” Annabeth pleaded.

“So bossy,” she mumbled, earning a light chuckle out of Annabeth.

Reyna started moving and rubbing faster and rhythmically. With every stroke Annabeth’s pleasure increased. The heat and wetness around her pussy radiated onto Reyna’s stiff fingers.

“Don’t stop,” Annabeth begged. “Please, I’m close.”

“No, not yet,” Reyna denied.

Reyna was a tease. She had enjoyed making Annabeth wait before they had started. The praetor intentionally didn’t give her what she wanted right away. Just because they were having sex, she didn’t want to give Annabeth the impression that this was the end of their rivalry. She still kept her guard up and lived up to her reputation of being the greatest annoyance in Annabeth’s life.

Much to Annabeth’s dissatisfaction and frustration, Reyna stopped all movement while keeping her fingers pressed firmly against Annabeth’s clit, like she was blocking water from pouring out of a hole.

“What? Why’d you stop?” Annabeth demanded, annoyed that she had been denied at the worst possible time, right before she reached her climax.

“You’re not allowed to get there until you’re told. Until you beg,” Reyna explained, her voice still just as deep.

Annabeth’s clit and the rest of her pussy were warm and soft to the touch. Reyna kept her fingers as firm as she could on her clit. She could feel the painful throbbing pulse underneath, begging to be released, but not yet.

This was the kind of stunt that only Reyna would pull, and Annabeth hated her for it.

Reyna could have stayed frozen like that all night. Truth be told, holding Annabeth in the palm of her hand was doing wonders for her own sexual stimulation.

“You’re going to keep fingering me, Reyna. I don’t care,” Annabeth said.

She shook her head. “Say you need it. I want you to beg for it.”

Annabeth wasn’t proud enough to deny Reyna who was playing her own games. She was so horny and she would hate herself more than she hated Reyna if she couldn’t get off at the end of the night. She did, in fact, need it, and Reyna wouldn’t let her hide that. If Annabeth wanted pleasure from Reyna, she would have to admit it.

“Please, Reyna,” she whispered. “I can’t wait anymore.”

Annabeth was panting heavily, watching Reyna smirk at the sweaty and desperate Greek demigod.

“You look so sexy when you ask me to fuck you,” Reyna growled deeply.

The first real compliment that Reyna had genuinely told her was during their first time, right before Annabeth was about to come.

Tightening her fingers, Reyna applied a forceful amount of pressure onto Annabeth’s throbbing, pulsating clit, doing so at the right time, with only a few back-and-forth strokes before Annabeth let loose a pleasurable, forceful orgasm.

Reyna gave Annabeth enough time to collect herself and to come back down to reality. She sat at the end of Annabeth’s bed with her legs crossed. In the roaring silence, she listened to Annabeth whimper softly. Annabeth tilted her head, looking towards her underwear that hadn’t moved from where Reyna had placed it. The praetor understood, but rather than allow Annabeth to dress herself, Reyna wanted Annabeth to continue to lie down, so she pulled the pair of undergarments back up her legs and positioned them.

Reyna’s fingers danced lightly and absentmindedly across the fabric that was now covering Annabeth’s pussy, but still able to feel the throbbing pulse of her sensitive clit and the surrounding walls of skin. She reveled in it herself as much as Annabeth did, knowing that she had achieved her goal of breaking down the daughter of Athena.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for so long now,” Reyna admitted.

Annabeth wondered what Reyna was referring to. She could have been talking about anything. The Roman demigod had made Annabeth come and was now also witnessing her sweaty, disheveled appearance underneath her, watching her chest move up and down and listen to her deep heavy breaths.

“How do you feel?” Reyna wondered.

How _did_ she feel? She was feeling so many things at once that she couldn’t describe the amalgamation of them all.

“Blissful,” Annabeth chuckled lightly, using one word in an attempt to sum up everything in the best way that she could.

Her laughter caused her body to shake. Her arms and legs spasmed after the feelings of her orgasm began to die down. The warmth that circulated her body began to dissipate, making her aware that she was lying on her bed naked in her cold dorm room. Annabeth tightly shut her eyes and crossed her arms over her forehead, trying to apply enough force to relieve herself from shaking.

Reyna realized and understood the situation and pulled herself up, reaching up to kiss Annabeth. She lied down on the Greek demigod and pressed her body weight down gently. She whispered words of affirmation before initiating another addicting, tender kiss, and Annabeth lifted her neck up to meet her.

Annabeth had used Reyna tonight, and she was going to do it again with Reyna being a solid, steady force like a rock that Annabeth needed to tether herself to. Annabeth looked up at Reyna. She focussed on her breathing, trying to feel less intimidated by how dominating she was.

 _She’s not a praetor for nothing,_ Annabeth thought. _Fuck me._

They pressed their foreheads together. Feeling Reyna’s upper-body muscles bore down onto her own flimsy, tingly body was enough to get her hard and horny all over again. Her eyes were glued to Reyna’s muscles. She believed that her infatuation with Reyna and her body would not be going away any time soon. Annabeth clung to the praetor out of necessity and partly due to the mixture of sweat that was coming off of Annabeth’s body.

“You were so loud,” Reyna said. “You might’ve blown our cover.”

“Sorry,” Annabeth apologized. “Couldn’t help it.”

She blushed profusely, her heart rate speeding up again the way it did before her orgasm.

The girls smiled at each other at the same time. Reyna held herself up, inches from Annabeth’s face with an arm on either side of her just above her shoulders. Out of the corner of her eye, Annabeth could see the dark ink of Bellona’s symbol along with SPQR written on the praetor’s forearm.

“Do you think anyone heard us?” Annabeth wondered.

“I don’t know,” Reyna admitted. “It’s possible.”

“Maybe you should stay over tonight then,” she offered. “You know, just in case anyone sees you leave. We don’t want it to look suspicious.”

Reyna smiled brightly, her loving eyes focussed completely on Annabeth. “I’m good with that.”

The girls quickly prepared themselves for bed. Annabeth picked her shirt off the ground and threw it on, still feeling somewhat cold and unsteady.

After a petty debate, Reyna won the honour of being the big spoon which Annabeth was silently thankful for, desperately craving Reyna’s solid touch. She sighed deeply as Reyna wrapped herself around Annabeth, and they intertwined their legs together.

Before Annabeth let herself be taken by sleep, she needed to let Reyna know one last thing.

“Th-thank you for tonight, I guess?” Annabeth stuttered. “I’ll, um, I’ll return the favour soon.”

Reyna’s ears perked up, and her eyebrows reached the top of her forehead. “So does that mean that this wasn’t just a one time thing?”

Annabeth let out a defeated sigh, wondering to the gods of Olympus how she ended up in the same bed as the daughter of Bellona. “Good night, Reyna.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i bet the "eventual smut" tag on this fic is making a lot of sense now


	6. Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jsyk this chapter has a smoking scene but idk shit about weed terminology so if any of it is wrong or sounds weird i apologize

Rays of sunlight shone brightly through Annabeth’s window, indicating the start of another day in New Rome.

The morning after, the girls had shifted little in their sleep. Annabeth’s twin bed didn’t provide much room anyway for them to fidget or roll over. Regardless, Reyna still had her arm firmly wrapped around Annabeth should she try to escape.

Annabeth wouldn’t dream of it. She had had one of the best sleeps last night that she’d had in weeks last night.

Both girls were facing the direction of the window, causing them to wake up at the same time when the sunlight beamed in their faces.

“G’mornin’.” Reyna mumbled in Annabeth’s ear, sending shivers down her body.

Annabeth bit her lip trying to keep herself together upon hearing Reyna’s sexy, deep morning voice for the first time. Reyna didn’t cough or clear her throat, so she must have known the effect that she had on the Greek demigod. Annabeth didn’t think it was fair for Reyna to be purposefully using her power and strength against her, making her feel weak and helpless.

Annabeth hummed a response as she leaned in more to the unique touch and sensation of being in Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano’s arms. She felt warm and comfortable, and Reyna enjoyed being with Annabeth just as much, moving her fingers along Annabeth’s smooth skin.

“What time is it?” Annabeth asked.

“Mm, no, don’t do that,” Reyna protested, wishing for them to remain in their peaceful world that they had created.

Against Reyna’s wishes, something that Annabeth historically loved and was used to doing, Annabeth pulled away slightly from Reyna to reach out and grab her phone on the nightstand. Her eyes groggily fluttered open and closed as she reached for her phone to check the time.

In the early hours of the morning, Annabeth still hadn’t shaken the sleep out of her system yet. The hallways outside were still and quiet. Annabeth usually used that as an indicator on whether or not the day had officially begun and if that meant that she had to start her day too.

“I should get ready,” Annabeth said.

“No. Don’t go,” Reyna protested.

Annabeth tried to free herself and get out of bed, but Reyna had too much strength. She tightened her grip on Annabeth’s arm and placed her head on her bicep.

“You are so cheesy.” Annabeth shook her head, turning over on her back to look at her.

“C’mon, Annie, you don’t really want to leave do you?” she whined.

Annabeth looked longingly into the eyes of the woman next to her before finally pulling herself away and sitting up, fluffing her loose hair and pushing it back out of her eyes.

She raised an eyebrow at Reyna. “Since when do you call me Annie?”

“Figured I needed a new nickname,” Reyna explained, propping herself up on her elbow. “‘Chase’ sounds too hostile now, don’t you think?”

Annabeth leaned down, placing her lips on Reyna’s for a deep kiss, lingering there for multiple moments. “Or you could just not give me a nickname.”

“Not possible, Annie,” she smirked.

“Get up!” Annabeth yelled, pushing the Roman demigod off her to get herself off the bed. “C’mon at least stretch with me, daughter of Bellona.”

Reyna moved to lay down on her back in response.

“You’re telling me, the so-called toughest praetor of Camp Jupiter isn’t a morning person?” she questioned.

“Please just stay,” Reyna begged, tilting her head to look and stare at Annabeth’s figure. “You don’t really want to leave, do you?”

“No, but I have to,” Annabeth declined. “I have a really important class in—” she checked the time on her phone “—ten minutes now. Don’t you also have somewhere to be?”

“No, why?”

“I don’t know. I remember you told me once that you have a camp to run or something like that? And that made you better than me?”

“Heh, yeah,” Reyna agreed. “But it’s fine. I’m sure Frank can handle things.”

“Wait,” Annabeth realized, “aren’t people going to notice if you’re missing? Like won’t they freak out if their praetor disappeared in the night and was nowhere to be found the next morning.”

“Maybe,” Reyna mused, putting a hand underneath her head, “but honestly, there’s always so much going on over there that I doubt it’ll be a big thing. Frank will cover for me if anyone asks.”

“Does he...know about us?” Annabeth asked.

“Nah. I didn’t even tell him where I was going last night. He’s just good at covering up the tracks. Don’t worry, babe. No one’s gonna know about us,” she smiled gently.

Reyna finally pulled herself up, swinging her feet over the edge of the bed. With her arms at her sides, pushing down into the bed, and her shoulders shrugging upwards, she looked up at Annabeth who was glaring down at her, waiting in anticipation for her to make her move.

Moments later, she pushed herself off the bed to stand up at her full height. Now she was the one who had to slightly tilt her chin down to look Annabeth in the eyes. She placed her hands on Annabeth’s hips, kissing her yet again.

“I can’t leave,” Reyna mumbled her words against Annabeth’s lips.

“And why is that?” Annabeth wondered.

“What if there are people standing outside, and they see me leaving Annabeth Chase’s room?” she worried.

“It’s still early,” she explained, “so usually a lot of people aren’t standing outside in the hallway. And I’ll end up leaving after you, so it’ll be fine.”

“If it’s still early, then why aren’t we in bed?” she pouted.

Annabeth shoved Reyna against the door. “Gods, you’re impossible.”

She looked at Reyna who still had the same mocking sad expression on her face, her plump lips jutted outwards. Annabeth thought she looked like a fully grown child who was also taller than her.

“Don’t leave your shit here,” Annabeth said.

Annabeth looked around the room for Reyna’s shirt that she had thrown on her desk chair in reckless spontaneity last night. Reyna had slept in her sports bra and sweatpants, but Annabeth told Reyna that she couldn’t leave any belongings behind. They weren’t ready to move to that stage just yet.

Annabeth shoved the clothes into Reyna’s hands. The praetor unfolded the bunched up sweater and pulled it over her head without breaking eye contact and keeping her back pressed against the door, leaning comfortably.

“Can I get a kiss before I go?” Reyna asked in that same deep, sexy voice that Annabeth was slowly starting to become more and more infatuated and obsessed with.

Annabeth lovingly gazed into Reyna’s eyes before responding. “Fuck no.”

She yanked the door handle, swinging the door open and shoving Reyna into the hallway.

She let out a deep sigh, taking in the first moment she’d been completely alone since yesterday. Pressing her back against the door and looking out through the window, it dawned on her that her life had become one ruthless and unrelenting pattern of alternating between seeing Reyna and the cool down time she had in between her run-ins. Annabeth knew that it was only a matter of time before she would stumble upon the praetor of Camp Jupiter.

Hopefully before that happened, she could go to class first and get a slight sense of normality.

She rushed to get ready after having wasted precious time arguing with Reyna. Even after they’d had sex, and Reyna had seen Annabeth fully naked, they were still arguing.

Annabeth barely made it on time for her class, scurrying to find a seat before the lecture started. For the entire duration, she couldn’t stop thinking about Reyna. Annabeth tried her best to focus, but she was entirely lost. Even when she paid attention to the professor, she was behind on the readings and the other work that she couldn’t understand the majority of what was going on. Having the Roman demigod freely roam around in her mind didn’t help her concentrate either. If she thought about the events of last night too much, she could still feel the lingering touches and sensations burning on her skin in every place where Reyna had touched her. She could still hear her voice, her husky, commanding voice, whispering in her ear, sending shivers down her spine. She winced at herself when she started to feel her clit tingle when she thought about Reyna for too long.

Annabeth wanted to see Reyna again. much to her own surprise. She had tried to fight the urges, but when she was honest with herself, deep down, she knew it was true. She couldn’t stop her heart rate from speeding up. She could feel her face flush with red colours, warmth encasing and rushing through her body. That was how she had felt the entire night last night. She would be pretty dumb not to seek out something that made her happy, even if Reyna was the last person who she ever thought would or expected to make her feel that way.

Annabeth really didn’t know if last night was going to be a one-night stand. She didn’t have a clue where they were going to go from here, and she doubted that Reyna had any ideas. She was clearly having problems and Reyna was the only one who could fix her problems, including her slipping GPA.

Reyna was right, Annabeth realized. She hated it when Reyna was right, but she was going to have to learn to live with that if they were going to potentially be seeing more of each other. She had been avoiding it, but Annabeth and Reyna really needed to talk.

Every time that Annabeth and Reyna had run into each other had been by chance. The one time where Annabeth wanted to actively seek out Reyna, she was nowhere to be found, of course.

The girls had had sex and slept in the same bed last night, but Annabeth didn’t have her phone number or any other type of reliable communication method. Funny how that worked out. Only Annabeth could’ve had that type of bad luck.

Annabeth traversed around the busiest areas of New Rome with her heavy backpack on her shoulders, hoping to find the praetor. She considered that Reyna could have gone back to Camp Jupiter, in which case Annabeth looked like a lost puppy wandering around the plaza by herself in search of someone who wasn’t there.

She walked past Reyna’s favourite coffee shop, purchased a drink for herself, and consumed it outside on the patio, hoping that the daughter of Bellona would stop by. There was a good chance of finding Reyna at her favourite coffee shop in the middle of the day. Sitting in broad daylight, near the location where she had shared her first kiss with the praetor, she tried not to visibly show how flustered she could get thinking about the night where everything changed. She tried to hide her widening, unstoppable smile behind her cup as she was forced to think about standing outside in the dark with the Roman demigod.

Annabeth ended up finishing the contents of her hot chocolate by herself without any familiar faces making an appearance. She stood up and threw her cup in the trash, refusing to give up her search. She still had a few locations in mind that she could check before she threw in the towel.

Her other plausible idea of where the praetor might be was in the same field where Annabeth used to go on her jogging route. Reyna had mentioned that that location was also one of her favourite, private spots. If she was feeling just as rattled and overwhelmed as Annabeth was about last night, she could have gone there after leaving Annabeth’s room.

Annabeth hoped that after walking all the way to the near edges of the city of New Rome, she would have located the daughter of Bellona, but her search had been in vain. She sighed deeply, dropping her shoulders in despair and exhaustion.

Now that she was out of ideas, Annabeth turned around and began walking back.

Half of the day had gone by, and none of it had been productive. Annabeth had given up on trying to find Reyna, deciding that she would most likely turn up at whatever inconvenient time that she wanted to.

Annabeth didn’t take her usual path back. She passed by large buildings that were in close proximity to one another which created small alleyways. She walked past this area a few times before when she used to jog out there. She’d calculated that this way was a shorter way back to her residence building. She’d never taken the route when she’d worked out before because she had always wanted to run for as long as possible. Feeling defeated, she took the shortcut.

Walking through the alleyway made her slightly uncomfortable through her intuition and bias, which was part of the reason why she normally avoided the area, but she was a demigod after all. She had faced much worse horrors than some other delinquent demigods or anything else that she could possibly encounter.

The alleyway was secluded and bare, not unusual for this time of day. Annabeth only noticed one person standing right in the middle. She would have to pass by them briefly, and she hoped she could do it quickly enough so it wouldn’t be awkward.

As she got closer, Annabeth noticed that the figure who she was looking at in the distance was Reyna, standing peacefully with her back against the wall and a foot propped up behind her. Her formidable stature was completely and easily recognizable. Annabeth had finally found her through luck and chance because that was how they always found each other in New Rome.

She began walking up to her more determinedly and with purpose, determined to get some answers out of her. Annabeth was only a few steps away when Reyna slowly turned her head to look at her, her eyes widening and eyebrows raising as soon as she saw the Greek demigod.

“I want to talk,” Annabeth stated firmly. In the corner of her eye, she noticed that Reyna was holding a blunt in between her fingers down at her side, slightly concealed. “Are you smoking?”

A puff of smoke dragged out of Reyna’s mouth and answered Annabeth’s question. She wondered how Reyna managed to stay fit considering how she always bested her at physical competitions in the past. She wondered if this was a new habit.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Reyna read her mind, “it’s not a horrible habit or anything like that. I only light one when the time calls for it...like right now.”

She gave a knowing look, with a raised eyebrow. Annabeth understood. That’s why she was here after all: to resolve the issue that was eating away at her, making her constantly feel on edge. She wanted to put it all behind her, solve it, and work it out with Reyna who was also clearly distressed over their situation.

“You said you wanted to talk to me?” Reyna inquired, taking another drag of her joint. “That’s new. Must be pretty serious.”

Annabeth watched Reyna’s lips curl around the joint, entranced by the way her throat bobbed up and down. Her presence was mesmerizing, completely enchanting. Annabeth never thought that she would be put in a position like this, not knowing how to react or what to say, struggling to form a coherent thought. She swallowed the lump in her throat, trying to ground herself in what felt like an other worldly experience. Heat creeped up her neck and flowed throughout her body. Time moved in slow motion as Annabeth pleaded for the moment to be over. She couldn’t handle staring at Reyna like this in broad daylight and not jump on top of her.

Reyna followed Annabeth’s eyes, watching and scanning her. “You gonna start talking or just stand around and watch me all day?” Reyna questioned.

“Right, sorry,” she apologized, running a hand across her face and through her hair.

“You’re adorable,” Reyna commented, clearly appreciating the attention which did not help Annabeth’s flustered state.

Annabeth cleared her throat. “So, I’ve been thinking. And I know you know this too, that our...relationship, or whatever it’s called at this point, is getting a little messy. The lines are blurry, and it’s driving me crazy. I really just want to understand everything at this point. Normally, I wouldn’t give two shits—you’ve always been a pain in the ass—but since we’re kind of getting closer now, and I’m trying not to be in denial as much, I can and should actually tell you how I’m feeling.”

Reyna inhaled vigorously on the joint in between her lips, taking her time before answering.

Watching the way that Reyna focused on smoking, Annabeth realized that the Roman demigod was prioritizing finishing up the blunt before she had even started thinking of an answer.

“I don’t wanna have this conversation with you if you’re high,” Annabeth stated.

“I’m not. Promise,” Reyna denied.

Annabeth watched Reyna put out the blunt before turning to look at her, indicating that she was prepared to give her full attention. Her face was relaxed, her muscles and eyes were droopy, creating a new, jarring image of the praetor. She ran her hands over her face and placed them in the pockets of her jacket that came down to her knees.

“So what you’re saying kinda sounds like what I’ve been trying to get you to admit to all along,” Reyna stated.

“Yeah, you’re right,” she admitted painfully. Reyna’s lips turned upward in a satisfying smirk, but Annabeth pressed on. “Yeah, you came to my room to talk last night and have this exact conversation, and it never happened. We talked for about five minutes before we had sex, and I just feel like we’re going in circles.”

“Yeah,” Reyna sighed dreamily. “Love how things work out.”

“Did you come see me just to have sex?” Annabeth asked bluntly, knowing that she was most likely right in assuming so. “Is that all I am to you? I spend years building a reputation of hating you, and apparently I wasn’t convincing enough because it seems like it was all for nothing.”

Reyna exhaled defeatedly. “I don’t know what I was looking for last night. I know that I wanted to see you. I didn’t really have any plans or ideas in mind because I knew there would be no point since we have this unpredictability streak going on. One thing just kinda led to the next.”

Annabeth groaned. “Ugh, see? This is what I’m talking about. You’re constantly sending mixed signals. One night you’re too shy to look me in the eye when we’re talking about college, and then the next night you suddenly turn into some dominant sex goddess who—”

“Dominant sex goddess?” Reyna tested out the words in her mouth as she carelessly looked upward at the sky. “I like the sound of that.”

“Stop avoiding the question!” she exclaimed. “Gods, you’re still so infuriating. This is why nothing will ever happen between us. Last night was just a huge fucking mistake. This whole thing has been one huge fucking mistake.”

She reached out and held Annabeth by her arms. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. You’re right. Ask me anything. We can work this out. Ask me.”

Reyna seemed sincere. She let go of Annabeth, giving her her freedom. She clearly didn’t want to lose Annabeth, and even though Annabeth had threatened to leave, she secretly still wanted to stay to get some answers to her questions.

“How,” she began, “how long have you been thinking about fucking me?” She bit her lip apprehensively. “‘Cause if this has been going on for a long time, then I feel like I’ve just wasted all my energy on hating you for nothing, and I feel so stupid.”

“Yeah, okay, asking the hard questions.” She sighed, looking upward, her lips twisting on her face, trying to calculate her answer. “Honestly, I can’t remember, but I can tell you it’s been a very long time. And I have thought about it multiple times before. But I don’t want you to feel like you’ve wasted your time or whatever.”

“Did you come to my room last night just to have sex?” Annabeth continued.

Reyna was silent. The praetor looked at Annabeth, and she could see the gears turning in her brain trying to think of a good answer that wouldn’t make the Greek demigod even more mad.

“I know I’m a completely shitty person if I say that it was just for sex, but you wouldn’t talk to me otherwise. So, no, you could say that it wasn’t just entirely for sex. I tried to reach out to you before. When I came to your room, it was late at night, and we had a private bed; you can put two and two together.”

“Was it—” It pained her to ask this next question, but she needed to know the answer. “Was it, like you hoped it would be?”

Reyna chuckled, making Annabeth tense up as if she had said something stupid and ignorant. “It was everything I wanted and more.” She measuredly inched forward, resting her cool hand on Annabeth’s warm cheek who instinctively leaned in to the touch. “And don’t worry, I got just as much out of it as you did.”

“How do you feel about me?” she wondered. “As of right now, in this moment.”

Annabeth saw Reyna tense up, then release a deep sigh. Annabeth could smell the traces of weed that escaped from her mouth. “I wish I had a good answer for you.”

“Oh, come on,” Annabeth groaned. “You really have nothing to say?”

Reyna bit her bottom lip. “I mean, when I look at you I see someone who’s smart, pretty, determined, strong, passionate, and a whole bunch of other adjectives that I could go on listing. Why do you think I didn’t immediately push you away when you first kissed me? And why do you think I kissed you again right after?”

All kinds of shades of red appeared on Annabeth’s cheeks. She shrugged embarrassedly, not having an answer that didn’t relate to some possible romantic feelings that she could have for Reyna that she was particularly ready to admit.

She tried to understand, thinking about all the stolen glances Reyna had thrown her way. They weren’t out of judgement; they were out of love. This whole time it was love.

The way she was looking at Reyna now, the way she looked into her eyes with such a great amount of focus, Annabeth hadn’t realized the possibility that maybe she liked Reyna too. Annabeth always felt hostile and angry when the two of them had gotten compared to each other in the past. She felt like she had to live up to those high expectations which was hard to do given that Reyna was so perfect in every way.

Maybe Annabeth had also secretly admired Reyna this whole time and had the hardest time realizing it through her foggy, cloudy judgement and perspective. She had been the one to initiate the kiss after all. She couldn’t deny that. Reasoning with and convincing herself that the only emotions she felt towards Reyna were hatred and resentment was a little difficult to do.

Maybe all it really took was for the two of them to kiss a countless number of times and have sex for Annabeth to start seeing things more clearly.

“So, once again, we haven’t figured any of this shit out,” Annabeth stated. “If anything, I’m even more confused on how I should feel about you right now.”

Reyna looked just as frustrated as Annabeth did. She almost looked uncomfortable, more than anything.

“Maybe I’ve said too much,” Reyna considered. “Go with your original plan. Let’s just put all of this behind us and act like it never happened.”

“But,” Annabeth began, “all that shit you said last night about not running away from our problems.”

Reyna eyes pierced holes into Annabeth.

“Do you maybe wanna pick this up in private?” Annabeth offered. “My place again tonight?”

Reyna walked past Annabeth without saying a word.

Annabeth wished she had something to say to stop Reyna from leaving, but the Roman demigod had determinedly made up her mind. Annabeth wanted to tell her how much her words meant to her, but before she could, Reyna was too far gone, leaving without a trace.

Only after Annabeth started heading back to her residence building did she begin to understand the signals that Reyna had been trying to send. She hadn’t wanted Annabeth to come see her in the first place. She had been hiding away, doing a private activity, and most definitely did not want to be bombarded with difficult questions about an annoying, tedious problem that she was having.

Annabeth cursed herself, scolding herself for not knowing better. She wondered now if she would ever get closure with Reyna, and if she didn’t, whether or not she would be okay with that and be able to manage. No matter how many conversations they can have Reyna was not going to open up. She could try to play it off cool as much as she wants with her smoking and laid-back attitude, but she had to be just as scared as Annabeth about all of this.

Showing emotion and vulnerability was not one of Reyna’s strong suits. She’d grown up forcing herself not to care too deeply about anything because it could all be taken away from her so quickly, something she’d experienced more than once in her lifetime. She vowed not to let it happen again, at least until she found herself slowly developing some kind of feelings for the daughter of Athena.

Annabeth painfully stayed awake that night for as long as she could in anticipation that Reyna might knock on her door. If they hadn’t had their talk today, and it hadn’t ended the way it did, she knew that Reyna would be rushing to come over as soon as nighttime fell on New Rome, and she could move inconspicuously.  
Annabeth felt weak and stupid waiting uncertainly for things to fall into her lap. Waiting for someone to come to her wasn’t like her at all, but she couldn’t bring herself to give up on Reyna.

At least, she now had a large block of free time to catch up on her school work, and scrolling on her phone to pass by even more time.

When she began yawning repeatedly, her eyes forcing themselves closed, she knew that she had no other choice but to go to sleep. She changed into her regular pyjamas before heading towards her bed.

As if her life couldn’t become anymore of a movie, just as Annabeth was about to lie down on her bed, she heard a faint knocking at her door. She thought that she might have imagined the noise, but she was desperate enough to check if Reyna really had turned up.

Adrenaline surged through her body in anticipation and excitement. She relentlessly yanked the door open, her impatience driving her forward.

Reyna entered and Annabeth immediately had her pushed against the back of the door, grabbing her shirt to pull her in and kiss her hurriedly and hungrily.

“Took you long enough, bitch,” Annabeth murmured.

“Nice to see you too,” Reyna chuckled.

“Two nights in a row. I’m getting dizzy,” she admitted.

“Looks more to me like you’re excited,” Reyna observed. “And that gets me so fucking hot.”

The girls revelled in another one of their iconic, hurried, sensual kisses. Annabeth relished in exploring every inch of Reyna’s mouth and body using her tongue and her hands. She had Reyna in the palm of her hand, and she wasn’t prepared to let go. Annabeth was buttering her up with the way she kissed her how she knew she liked to be kissed. She had blessedly been given another golden opportunity.

They’ll get to talking later. Talking can wait. Annabeth was desperate.

“You wanna fuck?” Reyna asked.

“Yeah.”

They repeated the events the same way they had played out last night, but that didn’t make anything about the situation apathetic or boring. Everything went more smoothly, now that Reyna understood Annabeth’s needs and wants. If it was somehow possible, the sex was even better and more powerful than the first time.

“Seeing you underneath me all sweaty and panting, so fucking hot,” Reyna stated.

She was so good at encouraging Annabeth. She was even better at delivering astonishing orgasms.

Reyna was slowly starting to enjoy taking care of Annabeth after sex and making her feel alright, with the way that she smiled so softly at her as she purposefully kept her grounded and helped her recover until she came down from her high orgasmic bliss and the effects wore off.

Once Annabeth was prepared to sit up again comfortably, she pressed her back against the wall next to her bed. Reyna sat next to her, both of them cross-legged, with their hands placed in the space between them, pinkies gently interlocked. The soft contact was comforting.

Annabeth exhaled heavily. Her deep breaths were the only noise that circled and swirled through the room until she was ready to talk. She tilted her head naturally, glancing in Reyna’s direction. The Roman demigod tried her best to act uninterested, but gave in quickly and shared her feelings with the girl sitting next to her, smiling softly and lovingly.

Annabeth felt serene. Their stolen glances created a gateway to a natural, casual conversation to finally address the elephant in the room.

“Correct me if I’m wrong but,” Annabeth began, “it seems like the only time you’re really confident in yourself is when you’re on top of me. Is there any reason for that?”

Reyna chuckled softly. “Um, not really, no.”

“It’s just that,” Annabeth began, “last time I saw you, you ran off without saying a word. I wasn’t even sure if you were gonna show up tonight.”

“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that,” she apologized.

“But then you did show up,” Annabeth continued. Her voice was stern. She looked directly at Reyna to see if she understood Annabeth’s pressing severity. “And we had sex. Again. And you had no problem exposing yourself.”

“Being vulnerable and being horny are two different things,” Reyna explained.

Annabeth motioned for Reyna to elaborate.

“Y’know, touching a girl’s clit until she comes is easy. The hard part is sharing my true feelings with her when she gets emotional after sex.” Reyna chuckled lightly, but Annabeth didn’t find it as funny. “When you said earlier that I’m constantly sending mixed signals, I knew you were kind of right.”

“Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano is admitting that I’m right? I’d love to hear more of this,” Annabeth teased.

The corners of Reyna’s lips turned upward slightly, for a few moments before she changed to a neutral expression on her face, looking down at her hands in her lap.

“Listen, I’m gonna be honest with you, being vulnerable isn’t my strong suit,” Reyna admitted.

“Yeah, I could’ve told you that,” Annabeth scoffed.

“I always tried my hardest to play it cool around you before we got friendly. But now it just backfires in the worst way. Every time I did that when I thought we were getting close, you would get fed up with me and leave. That’s when I knew that I had fucked up and would try to make it better, but, I don’t know, things just got too messy by then.

“Every time I would try and be just a little bit vulnerable and open up, I ended up regretting it right after. It was like one painful cycle that I kept repeating, like a battle I was having with myself while I was also battling you on the outside the whole time.”

“Being vulnerable is embarrassing,” Annabeth repeated. “I hear you on that.”

She understood what it meant to be tough and to save face in front of others, but even Annabeth knew when to freely show her emotions. A lot of the times during quests, she’d broken down in front of her friends when things had gotten too tough. Their unconditional support helped her a lot in overcoming those fears. Reyna never had anyone who she could really talk to and confide in.

“So I guess what I’m really trying to say is I kinda have this habit of teasing and fooling around, but once things get serious I turn and run the other way,” Reyna explained.

“Sounds about right,” Annabeth agreed.

Annabeth was shooting daggers from the side, and Reyna knew she deserved it.

“But even if I’m terrified, I feel like I should tell you this ‘cause there’s no hiding it now,” Reyna chuckled softly. “I’ve had a crush on you for a very long time, Annabeth. Since the end of the war and I saw what a completely amazing person you are. I never really thought I’d ever get to tell you. I was expecting that secret to die with me.”

Her voice was low, but not grizzly or gruff. She sounded as soft and sincere as anyone could.

“You sure had a weird way of showing it,” Annabeth mumbled, not knowing what else to say in her state of shock.

“I know. But I’m saying it out loud because it’s hard for me to be open like this. I’m sorry for all the mixed signals I’ve been sending. This whole thing has been one big crazy mess that I never thought I’d get myself into, but I’m here anyway, sitting next to you. And if I haven’t fucked up whatever we have between us, then maybe this could turn into something more. I don’t know, just a thought. You’re really important to me, Annabeth. I’d have to work on being more honest and sensitive, which is very difficult, but if I’m going to do it with anyone, I want it to be with you.”

Reyna looked into the eyes of the woman she loved, seeing tears forming at the brim. She took that as an answer to mean yes and pulled her in for a kiss to seal the deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stream ungodly hour by chloe x halle because they helped me greatly in writing this chapter


	7. Part Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone! so sorry this chapter took forever to upload, life gets busy :(
> 
> you see i really could've ended the whole fic with the last chapter but i love these two too much so y'all are getting more content

Annabeth Chase and Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano’s relationship was evolving rapidly. The girls were trying to make up for lost time. Annabeth was learning so many new things about Reyna at such a fast pace that it kept feeding her curiosity and making her want more.

Annabeth couldn’t get enough of it, and evidently neither could Reyna. The number and frequency of their hookups was steadily increasing, much to the eagerness and excitement of both girls.

They continued to see each other whenever and wherever they knew that they would be safe from encountering any accidental witnesses, which was usually in Annabeth’s dorm room, but the same alleyway where they had run into each other before served as a good meeting spot too.

The praetor had kept her word. She was slowly starting to reveal different sides of her personality and pieces of information that she’d kept private and buried deeply for a long time. Opening up was slow work, but progress was being made. Annabeth was seeing brand new sides of Reyna that she never imagined she would’ve been able to see in her lifetime.

The week had passed by without much incident. Annabeth attended her classes; Reyna kept things running smoothly at Camp Jupiter.

They hadn’t seen each other in person since the start of the week when Reyna had made her promise to change for Annabeth’s sake and for her own benefit.

When the weekend arrived, most of the students of New Rome University went home to their families who lived in the city and therefore close to campus. Annabeth’s home situation in Virginia was strenuous at best, and she couldn’t spend only two days at her real home in Long Island.

With the free time that she had over the weekend, Annabeth had no trouble deciding how she wanted to spend it.

The girls had smartened up and exchanged phone numbers, so they could communicate and find each other more easily in New Rome at designated spots where they knew they wouldn’t get caught. Annabeth searched for Reyna’s name among her other messages and typed out a short message asking if Reyna were free to come see her.

In almost no time at all, the praetor responded saying that she would be there as soon as possible.

The daughter of Bellona made good on her promise, showing up at Annabeth’s door in record time with a steaming cup of hot chocolate in either hand, putting the brightest smile on the Greek demigod’s face.

Reyna passed Annabeth her drink who took it from the praetor. Their hands briefly brushed against each other, embarrassingly sending a small chill down Annabeth’s back and causing Reyna to smirk.

Annabeth offered Reyna a seat at her desk chair, but Reyna admitted that she preferred to stand next to Annabeth while she curiously wafted through the stacks and piles of papers on Annabeth’s desk against the Greek demigod’s protest. She had been rifling through her papers before Reyna had arrived in an attempt to make her room look somewhat presentable. Reyna had shown up sooner than expected, causing Annabeth to complete a half-finished job.

“Somehow I thought a daughter of Athena would be more organized,” she remarked. “I don’t know, maybe from being smart and all. I always thought you were such a bookworm and shit.”

She sifted through the papers mindlessly, ignoring Annabeth’s protests and reaching her hand out for the daughter of Bellona to stop what she was doing.

“My school work’s not that interesting,” Annabeth argued.

“I just have a natural curiosity,” Reyna retorted.

Annabeth had only been able to move around and rearrange a certain stack of papers, aimlessly placing them on the top shelf above her desk, but with Reyna’s height, she had no trouble seeing it.

Reyna’s playful attitude suddenly disappeared. She picked up a pastel-coloured note that had a frilly border and was curved around the edges. Her mouth was hanging open slightly, and she looked at Annabeth with widened eyes that were filled with amazement.

“This is from months ago.”

Annabeth froze once she saw the note, silently cursing herself for not tidying up before she had invited Reyna over and throwing away the embarrassing note months ago like she should have done.

Of course Reyna would have seen it underneath all of her notes. She had eyes like a hawk and could see the tops of shelves better than Annabeth could.

Annabeth tried to think of a cover up to not embarrass herself in front of someone whose opinion she deeply cared about.

“Yeah, I haven’t gotten around to throwing it out,” she chuckled nervously. “ADHD and all.”

Reyna paused as if she had a profound realization.

“You like me,” she beamed. “You really like me. You’ve liked me this whole time, and you had no idea. You were so stupid.”

She let out a deep belly laugh that made Annabeth’s ears ring. “Wisdom’s daughter my ass.”

“N-no, I don’t,” Annabeth stammered.

The blush rising to her cheeks didn’t help make her case convincing. She didn’t know why she was trying to hide it. The two of them had already had sex and had much more intimate conversations about things other than a piece of paper, only that was the exact problem. The small square that Reyna was holding was physical proof that Annabeth had had feelings for Reyna at a time where she’d been trying so hard to act like she didn’t.

“Yes, you do,” Reyna said. “You were the one who kissed me first, remember? You found out I _might_ have liked you and had feelings for you, and what’s the first thing you do? Normal people would’ve just bought me a coffee and taken it slow.”

“Gods, you’re never gonna let me forget that, are you?” Annabeth placed her face in her hand.

As quickly repetitive as Reyna’s reminders got, Annabeth had to admit that they were also endearing. She loved seeing Reyna’s constant smiles and smirks, and Annabeth felt elated knowing that she was the one who had caused that.

Reyna’s comments had created an opening to talk more about the events of that fateful night. Reyna had finally settled down in Annabeth’s desk chair, leaning back casually with her cup of hot chocolate grasped firmly in her hand and holding on to the physical evidence of Annabeth’s love for Reyna in the other.

Annabeth pushed herself up to sit on her desk on the side that wasn’t covered in her school work and supplies. Her legs were slightly spread apart, and Reyna was not subtle about eyeing her up throughout their conversation while they sipped their drinks.

Lounging around her room with a beautiful girl whom she liked a lot was one of the best things that could happen to Annabeth as an easy conversation flowed back and forth between the two of them.

“How’s Camp Jupiter?” Annabeth wondered how Reyna’s life was going outside of her.

“Not too bad. Same as usual, you know us Roman-hating Greeks,” she laughed at her own joke, and Annabeth rolled her eyes. “What about you? Seems like your studying isn’t that great considering how disorganized you are.”

“Yeah, it’s alright. I love architecture, but it is really hard to learn, even if you think I’m stupid,” she snapped.

Reyna responded with a smirk.

The girls talked about what had been going through their heads and how they had felt. They recalled the time just like this where they had gotten together to drink hot chocolate with each other the first time that they had met.

In the middle of their conversation, where Annabeth was explaining something that she found fascinating, Reyna casually leaned herself forward, placing her head in Annabeth’s lap. The Greek demigod paused her story to question the daughter of Bellona who shrugged casually as she ran her hand all across Annabeth’s thighs while looking up at her innocently through her long eyelashes.

Heat started to creep uncomfortably throughout Annabeth’s entire body while she tried to appear unbothered by the praetor’s actions.

“You’re such a tease,” Annabeth scolded.

“You got that right,” Reyna confirmed. “You want me to stop?”

“No,” she snapped. “Don’t you dare.”

The praetor chuckled lightly at Annabeth’s enthusiasm, something that she was always entertained by. “You’re not so subtle, you know. Not that great at hiding your feelings.”

Annabeth could tease Reyna just as much. “You’re not so great at feelings either,” she said, stating the obvious. “You had a crush on me this whole time, and you were really bad at showing it.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Honestly, I deserve that,” she admitted defeat, toughening out the verbal jabs that Annabeth was throwing at her.

Annabeth never thought she’d ever hear the daughter of Bellona admit to being wrong. Another surprising turn of events that occurred where Reyna constantly proved herself worthy and dedicated to changing for both Annabeth and herself.

“I can’t believe I spent all those nights crying over the fact that you would never like me,” Reyna said.

Her words had flown out of her mouth on their own, as if they were begging to be released and put in the air between the two of them. Annabeth could see her clear expression, wishing she could take the words back.

“You cried over me?” she whispered.

Reyna looked down as hues of red crept up her neck. “Not really cry. Maybe just a few tears.”

Annabeth could easily tell that Reyna was lying and deflecting again.

“Yeah,” she continued. “It really hit me hard sometimes when I realized that you’d never like me back, obviously, given how much you hated me. But it’s all water under the bridge because now I know you’re obsessed with me. And don’t even try and deny it.” She dangled the note in front of Annabeth’s face.

The rest of the afternoon passed with the demigods enjoying each other’s company and ignoring everything in the outside world. The beginnings of an early evening crept upon them through the window, with the bright sunlight gradually dimming and shades of orange entering the room.

“I should get going before it gets dark,” Reyna said.

She finally pulled herself away from Annabeth, untangling the mess of limbs that they had created for themselves.

“Or you could sleep over tonight?” Annabeth offered.

Reyna had only spent the night one time, and they’d barely had any time to spend together since then with all of their class and camp duty scheduling conflicts.

“I really shouldn’t,” she declined. “I would love to, but.”

Her voice trailed off, and Annabeth could tell that there was a reason that Reyna wasn’t telling her.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” Annabeth reassured.

Reyna smiled softly at the daughter of Athena. She pushed herself off the desk and stood facing the Roman demigod in the center of her small room.

In one quick motion, Reyna threw her arm over Annabeth’s shoulder from behind. She caught a quick view of all the bruises, cuts, and calluses on her hand, registering briefly in her mind how hard this girl worked for everything she had in her life.

Annabeth leaned in to Reyna’s touch, resting her cheek onto Reyna’s who lowered her lips and pressed them against the skin underneath Annabeth’s ear. She rested her chin on Annabeth’s shoulder, acting like her typical smooth and suave self.

“Shorty,” Reyna teased as her own way of saying goodbye.

“I am not short,” Annabeth protested. “I’ll have you know, I’m taller than the average, and you’re only two inches taller than me.”

“Whatever, Shorty,” she smirked.

Reyna’s signature smartass behaviour, her one-track mind, her headstrongness, they all used to drive Annabeth crazy. The daughter of Bellona had driven Annabeth insane with her attitude over the years, but now all she felt was insanely in love.

“You’re insane, you know that?” she commented, turning her head slightly, as much as she could given the restrictions that Reyna had placed on either side of her neck. She pointed her eyes at the praetor. “You drive me absolutely batshit crazy.”

Reyna placed a gentle kiss on the corner of Annabeth’s mouth. “Good.”

Annabeth shrugged Reyna’s arm off her shoulder, turning around quickly to properly kiss her. She threw her own arms around her neck, the way she liked to do and she now knew that Reyna enjoyed it as well.

“I gotta keep you on your toes. I can’t have you thinking I’m in love with you or something.”

* * *

Annabeth finally went to Camp Jupiter with Reyna.

She hadn’t been invited, but the Greek demigod walked onto the camp property by herself to find the praetor.

They had just seen each other yesterday, but Annabeth still missed her companion. She waited until the late hours of the night when she knew that Camp Jupiter would be sleeping. She had been correct in assuming that it was around the same time as the Camp Half-Blood schedule.

Reyna hadn’t been able to sleep over last night, but Annabeth was craving the same feelings that she had when she had been securely and lovingly wrapped up in Reyna’s arms for the night. Her feelings were strong enough to motivate her and drive her forward.

Since she was already in New Rome, getting on to the camp property wasn’t that difficult. She tried to remember the layout of Camp Jupiter as best as possible from the last time she had been here. Her memory was hazy, and the dark atmosphere didn’t help, but she was eventually able to find the room where she was certain that Reyna would be. She remembered that the principia served as the headquarters for the praetors, and that was good enough for Annabeth.

She cracked the door open with a creaking noise. The lights were off with only a single lamp turned on in the corner of Reyna’s desk. She instantly turned around from where she had been standing with her dagger drawn, pointing it at Annabeth from across the room.

“Well, mark me down as scared and horny,” Annabeth smirked, mockingly putting her hands up.

“What the fuck are you doing here? You scared the shit out of me, bitch,” Reyna exhaled, sheathing her dagger back at her side.

She was still dressed in her full Roman attire like she was still working and not ready to settle down for the night.

Annabeth giggled, closing the door behind her and trying to contain herself before she could speak. “Well, I wasn’t planning on catching you like this, but I’m glad I did. Your face was priceless.”

“Still need an answer.” The praetor was getting agitated. She walked past her desk over to where Annabeth was standing with her back pressed against the door.

“I’ve been thinking,” she began, “I wanted to see you again. But I keep worrying about getting caught, so I thought that we should change up our locations, just to be safe.”

“So you came out here in the middle of the night, not knowing where you’re going, and you thought that would look less suspicious than what we’ve already been doing?” Reyna questioned.

“Well, when you say it like that,” she mumbled.

Reyna dove in rapidly, placing kisses all along Annabeth’s neck. “I love it.”

Annabeth had chosen the perfect time to arrive, given how clearly eager Reyna was to throw herself all over the daughter of Athena. They settled into their calm rhythm as they kissed each other hungrily, relishing in the familiar sensations that they both had grown to love.

Reyna pulled away minutes later, revealing to Annabeth the hidden door to a small bedroom, slightly more spacious than Annabeth’s dorm room, against the back wall.

The girls snuck away to the dark room and planted themselves onto the clean bed spending the night together complete with kisses, leaving marks on their bodies, teasing, playing, and most important of all: orgasming.

Annabeth realized and confirmed to Reyna that the dazed feeling she felt after Reyna had torn her to shreds was one of the best feelings in the world. Annabeth felt like she was floating, hovering inches above the bed. She didn’t ever want to move a muscle again. Reyna laid next to her on her side, watching mesmerized as the Greek demigod’s chest rose and fell.

“You really like playing with my hair,” Annabeth observed.

“Mhmm,” Reyna agreed softly.

Annabeth turned her head to see the praetor weave the golden locks over, under, and through her calloused fingers.

“I always liked curly hair. Yours really caught my attention when we first met. That on top of being a natural blonde and the way you tied it back so tightly all the time. I always thought to myself ‘She’s gonna destroy her hairline that way. That can’t be good.’” She chuckled to herself.

Wisdom’s daughter still had questions running through her mind. Even with all of the progress that they had made, Reyna was still an enigma that Annabeth had only locked a few pieces into place. She figured that if she was going to get any answers out of her, lying in bed after a long day with her while she was completely in love was the best time to do it.

“Did you always hate me?” Annabeth asked. “‘Cause you said from when we met.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t call it hate at this point even though back then it was super obvious. Sure, sometimes you could get under my skin with how you always just _had_ to be right about everything, but that’s still true.”

“So, what made you change your mind about me?” Annabeth wondered. “You know, you had to stop hating me and start liking me at some point.”

“It’s a stupid answer,” she chuckled lightly, “but I gotta be honest, I was getting tired. Tired of, you know, trying to keep up the front that you were my greatest enemy and all that. I thought it was time to grow up and put it all in the past. Then you went and kissed me and everything that I thought I knew about you changed.”

“Yeah, you did try to get me to loosen up a few times,” Annabeth recalled.

“I think I just started to realize how amazing you are,” Reyna admitted. “The feelings I had for you weren’t so much as hatred as they were jealousy, envy, and admiration.

“Although, I never really changed my mind about you, you know? I’ve admired you and looked up to you for a long time. The crush and the lovey-dovey stuff happened somewhere along the way. You always pushed me to be better, and I really loved that about you. I always felt like I needed to put up a front because I couldn’t be soft while you were always angry with me.”

“Reyna,” she whispered, speechless. The shades of red on her face spoke for her.

“You’re so amazing, Annabeth. I mean, how could I not be in love with you? You’re so strong and brave. You command respect the moment you walk into a room. Everything about you is so perfect, like you were moulded and created and shaped and sculpted by the gods themselves.”

“You’re so corny,” Annabeth huffed.

“It’s true. I’ve wanted to tell you for so long. I felt like if I didn’t soon, I would explode.”

Annabeth grabbed Reyna’s hand in her own, pressing their palms against each other while tapping the pads of their fingertips together gently and mindlessly. They mirrored the other’s movements as they rotated their hands around and in between each other and twisted their wrists.

The close connection and intimacy made Annabeth’s heart beat so fast that she wondered if Reyna could hear it drumming inside of her with how close they were laying next to each other. She wondered if Reyna could feel the warmth emanating from her body from how comfortable and relaxed she felt being with the other woman.

Reyna put her hand underneath Annabeth’s shirt who didn’t mind or show any negative reactions. The feeling of Reyna’s hands on her skin felt secure.

Annabeth rolled over on her shoulder, looking at nothing but Reyna in her direct view, keeping firm eye contact with her. She tucked her hands underneath her head while Reyna kept playing with her hair.

“Are you still gonna threaten to get this Greek girl kicked out after I snuck into your Roman camp,” she teased.

“Nah, you were on your best behaviour tonight,” she smiled lightly.

She snuck forward slightly, pressing her nose and forehead against Annabeth’s.

“I’m glad you came. It was the last thing I expected, but it was the best surprise after a long day. Much needed stress relief,” Reyna admitted.

“Running a summer camp can get busy,” Annabeth agreed. “I get it. Especially a camp for demigods. If you have anything you want to get off your chest, I’m here.”

“I don’t wanna bring you down,” she declined. “The mood’s already so perfect right now.”

“Well, no, it’s not because you’re upset about something,” Annabeth provoked.

She wasn’t going to leave this alone, and Reyna knew that too, judging based on how she furrowed her eyebrows to analyze Annabeth. The daughter of Athena spent years cultivating a reputation of having a stubborn attitude and personality, even when it came to her relationships. She was also sensitive, nurturing, and gentle when the time called for it.

She sighed. “It’s just—I don’t know if you ever feel like this—but demanding respect is hard. And, I’m not white like a lot of the campers are, and some of them have more experience than me. I know a lot of people see me as scary or intimidating or whatever, but like, I don’t know how else to earn their respect. I want to be a good leader and have people follow me for my skills and because they trust me. Not because they’re afraid of me.”

Annabeth stayed silent. She understood what Reyna meant, but she didn’t want to say the wrong thing and make her even more agitated. Annabeth almost felt guilty about being so mean to her when all she wanted from her peers was respect. She never really understood how rough Reyna had had it until now.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love Camp Jupiter,” Reyna said, “and being a praetor really is an honour. But there’s always darkness in the light. It’s never truly black and white. You can’t have one without the other.”

Annabeth was feeling the same way now that she had when she had first arrived at Camp Half-Blood and realized that she could finally stop running. She could take a break and feel at ease.

She felt the same way about Reyna. They’d started off a little more than just rocky, but being in her bed with her was like being on their own untouchable island.

“I think I’m gonna apply here,” Reyna admitted abruptly, fixating her gaze on Annabeth. “To go to school. Yeah, now that I’ve said it out loud, I think I really wanna do it. It’ll be really complicated trying to convince the council and all that. I haven’t exactly figured out how that’ll happen yet either. And I can’t live here until I serve my ten years, but maybe they’ll make an exception for me too cause y’know, I also helped save the world.”

Annabeth shook her head. “You never stop showing off.”

She smiled. “I just know that you inspire me, Annabeth. It’s all because of you.”

Annabeth couldn’t contain her love. Her face contorted into a smile while her eyes began to shake as they started filling up with tears.

“If you had never come to New Rome, I would be a completely different person. Both of our lives would be different. Could you imagine if the camps could see us now?” Reyna contemplated. “And knowing that this isn’t the first time that we’ve done this. It would be like the biggest news to ever happen between both camps. Even crazier than when we first met.”

“We have a lot of power, don’t we?” Annabeth remarked. “Feels nice, but at the same time, it also feels crippling.”

“We don’t have to tell everyone about what we’ve done behind closed doors,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve kinda been thinking about doing something else. Maybe you and I could start acting just a bit more friendly to one another in public and tell people that we’re trying to put our differences aside and work them out. It’ll make both of us look good, and it could help both camps.”

Annabeth considered the idea, twisting her mouth in concentrating thought.

“I like that. I kind of wish we could’ve done something like that sooner, though” she admitted, “including all of the private stuff between us too. We wasted two years fighting each other and for what? And poor Piper who was caught in the middle of all of it. If we’re confessing anything to anyone we have to start with her. We really could’ve been forces to be reckoned with if we had stayed united after the war. Maybe we could’ve started out as good friends a long time ago, but I didn’t even know you liked me.”

Reyna sighed. “Always the war strategist. Annabeth, you can’t sit around and wonder what might have been. We have the time now, let’s do something about it instead of waiting. If you want to start by telling Piper, we can do that together. And I think I tried to make my feelings obvious on more than one occasion. I thought that maybe with all the teasing and the jokes and the making fun that you’d eventually realize that I had feelings for you. I thought you were supposed to be smart.”

“Hey!” Annabeth retaliated. “I _am_ smart. It’s not my fault that your flirting strategies are the same as a five-year-old boy’s who pulls on girls’ pigtails.”

“You’re right about that,” she agreed. “I really have no idea how to flirt. I didn’t even realize that it was flirting for like the longest time. I don’t even really remember when I stopped just plain teasing and switched to trying to get you to like me instead. That’s how blurred everything is.”

“So where do we go from here, then?” Annabeth inquired. “I love these late-night hookups, but is that all that there is?”

“Well, all I know right now is that you make me smile every time I think of you. And I don’t want to freak you out or anything when I say this, but with everything that’s been going on since you came to New Rome, I think I might be falling in love with you.”

She shook her head quickly, regretting creeping on her face. “It’s-it’s not really feelings of love. It’s just more like excitement. Yeah, just feeling the love so you can feel something and anticipate the future and what’s to come.”

Annabeth’s mouth hung open. “You want me to believe that you love me?”

Her words had come out sounding hostile even though she didn’t mean them to.

“Gods, how could I not be in love with you, Annabeth?” Reyna whispered. “What a stupid question. You’re the most perfect person in the entire world.”

“If you’re anticipating the exciting future, then what do you see in the future for us?” she inquired.

She’d asked an extremely difficult question, but Reyna answered without hesitation.

“I mean, anything is possible. Whatever you’re comfortable with. If you want to just keep meeting up in secret, I’m fine with that too. This could work out as a friends with benefits situation. Or I guess it would be more like enemies with benefits. Or if you want to, I don’t know, start dating, I wouldn’t hate that. We don’t have to decide anything right now—I don’t think that would be good for either of us—we can just see how this goes for now. But personally, I’d love to be able to call you my girlfriend,” she smiled, her eyes crinkling in the corners.

“My grades have been slipping ever since all of this started. I don’t know if it would all work out,” Annabeth trailed off.

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you study,” Reyna smirked.

“What if we stayed as enemies and always competed to bring out the best in each other, but we also fucked one another from time to time because that is too good to pass up. I’d be dumb to give it up,” she teased.

“Hey, if you want a relationship like that that means that you have to show up too.” Reyna shoved her lightly.

“Alright.” Annabeth pushed herself up and straddled Reyna’s waist, who was looking up at her with intense eyes.

She assumed that Reyna communicated to her what she wanted done to her during the times where the roles had been reversed. Annabeth teased Reyna, slowly removing her clothes off her body and taking her time to get her adequately warmed up.

She spent her time laying on top, firmly pressing their bodies together, removing all the space between them, as she kissed her slowly and passionately, revelling in Reyna’s familiar softness and wetness.

Feeling Reyna’s pussy and how wet it was made Annabeth feel powerful. She finally understood what Reyna felt when she had been in this position.

Annabeth couldn’t take her eyes off of the praetor as she watched her shoulders roll back. Reyna wasn’t subtle about the way she arched her back or thrusted her body upwards, making Annabeth even more eager to continue delivering pleasure to the woman who had been so kind to her.

“I’m close,” she whispered.

Reyna’s voice was soft enough to stop Annabeth in her tracks. She wanted to stay in that moment forever, looking down at one of the toughest demigods ever who was begging for Annabeth to finish her off.

With only a few more delicate strokes, Reyna let the softest moans escape her lips. The noise made Annabeth’s ears ring. Her heart started beating faster at how beautiful Reyna looked with her eyes closed and her sweat dripping down the sides of her head.

Annabeth wanted to let Reyna recover in the same way that she did for her, except Reyna had other ideas. She stuck her arms out, asking and begging for Annabeth, needing her presence. Annabeth climbed next to her, and the girls wrapped their arms around one another.

With her lips just above Annabeth’s ear, her voice still soft and weak, she whispered, “I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just wanted to let y'all know that the next chapter will officially be the last one. it'll be just a short epilogue similar to the prologue at the beginning :)
> 
> thank you all again so much for reading, you all mean the world to me <3


	8. Epilogue

Annabeth Chase spent many nights in the company of Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano many times after the night where they confessed their love and true feelings for one another. They would both remember the moment for the rest of their lives, lying next to each other, in their favourite position, with Reyna’s arms casually finding themselves around Annabeth’s body, no inch of skin went untouched.

The daughter of Athena had paid numerous visits to her Roman friend, usually on the weekends when the everything that went on around them was a little bit more quiet. The world was especially quiet when the two of them hid in the bedroom at the back of the principia where they would fuck and spend time with one another in the dark, physical contact tethering them together.

The infamous hostility and aggressiveness that lived and circled between the two of them had died down to a minimum, to a speck of dust. The evil glares had been replaced with stolen glances and loving gazes.

The only thing that Annabeth could find herself to hate about Reyna was how the praetor still loved to tease her relentlessly, but Annabeth couldn’t find it in herself to stay mad for very long. Reyna’s jokes always had their way of getting Annabeth to smile, no matter how reluctant she was. She’d made good on her promise to still be annoying, whether the two of them were enemies or lovers. Even then, Reyna was still loving and affectionate.

They slept together, in every sense of the word. They were grateful for the rare times that they could see each other, spending uninterrupted time together, unafraid of getting caught. No matter how busy they were, they still took advantage of every opportunity they had to be in the other’s company. They switched the location from time to time, but wherever they were, the girls could work in comfortable silence that was filled by their small shallow breaths as they crouched over their projects on opposite ends of a table, with hot chocolate drinks in the middle.

The demigods decided to keep their relationship to themselves for a little while longer, even though things couldn’t have been better between the two of them. They still had their own fears tugging in the back of their minds worrying about how the camps would react to receiving big news with no warning.

Their budding relationship was personal. Nobody else needed to be involved except for them. They were the only people who were affected by this, the only people who mattered. A relationship involved two people. Annabeth and Reyna’s relationship had started out privately and intimately, from the very first moment where they had shared hot chocolate together in the Garden of Bacchus to when they had kissed each other in the plaza in New Rome. Everything was about them. Opening up to the world would burst the delicate bubble that they had miraculously managed to create during the time that Annabeth had started studying at New Rome University.

Reyna, being the obnoxious tease that she was, didn’t mind the excitement and the panic of trying to fit inside Annabeth’s closet when one of her classmates had unexpectedly knocked on her door to borrow her notes. Even though the stress and tension definitely wasn’t good for their hearts, the way that they laughed about it afterwards was priceless. All they could do for now was fantasize about a day where they could go to their favourite coffee shop together, find a table for two in back, where they would hold hands from across the table, staring into each other’s eyes as they calmly sipped their hot chocolates together, not in any hurry to finish.

The girls had talked to each other on more than one occasion on when and how they would break the news to the camps. They’d spent more than one sleepless night discussing it multiple times whenever it came up in conversation, even if they’d only been making small talk over dinner.

The most logical idea that they could come up with to satisfy both of their needs was to start out by acting as friends. Even if they hadn’t done that in their relationship, it was the best approach for revealing their secret. If they slowly started playing nice with each other in public, claiming that they were working on forming an alliance for the benefit of both camps, then announcing the truth about their relationship down the line wouldn’t be so shocking.

All of that talk would happen in the future. Annabeth worried a lot more about it than Reyna did. The Roman demigod assured that they wouldn’t do anything rash without first consulting the other. They were both prominent figures at their camps. All of the campers knew how powerful and respected both girls were, given how they had both helped save the world.

Reyna liked thinking about the future and the endless opportunities. Annabeth was usually on the receiving end of hearing about the praetor’s ambitious plans and goals. She always worked for the benefit of her camp, looking out for every single person.

Now that Annabeth was a part of her life too, Reyna wanted to look after her too.

She could look after a friend, but Annabeth was so much more to her than that. When Reyna watched Annabeth give 100% to everything she did, accompanied by the warmth that would overtake her body every time she saw the daughter of Athena, that wasn’t something that came along with having a friend, or even a friend with benefits.

The last night of the year, Reyna had been discussing her plans for Camp Jupiter. The girls had been sitting outside at night on a bench in the Garden of Bacchus, surrounded by countless species of flowers. They’d shared a kiss after they had counted down, recognizing how cliché it was, but neither of them wanted to pass up an opportunity for a kiss. Reyna admitted to Annabeth that she had one more resolution, asking her the fateful question, if she wanted to enter the new year while also entering into a new, official relationship.

Annabeth’s face was taken over by the brightest, most genuine smile. Her eyes crinkled as she pulled Reyna closer in the tightest hug, burying her face in the crook of her neck, as the sounds of fireworks went off sporadically in the distance. Annabeth may have shed a few tears, but she couldn’t remember anything other than holding Reyna.

In the same way that Annabeth had kissed Reyna for the first time, and Reyna had said the three-word sentence that made Annabeth’s heart do backflips, the girls decided at the same time that they would be the other’s girlfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we are, finally at the end
> 
> thank you so much to everyone for reading and leaving comments and kudos, y'all really mean the world to me 🥺💕
> 
> i originally planned for this to be a very short fic with about three parts but that clearly didn't happen. i love writing and all of you motivated me to keep writing more and more chapters so thank you all so much. i love annabeth and reyna just as much as i love all of you
> 
> i ended up making [a playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5M17bcOy9wMqqVNjAV0fdI?si=ejVNAMN4Q9W5GIk_GEyvTw%20rel=) with some songs that remind me of our girls and this fic so go ahead and give it a listen if you would like


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